Scientia Potentia Est
by cocoartist
Summary: When you can't change time, but you can't go forward, what is left? [Now rated M] [EWE]
1. Octarine

Disclaimer and Author's Note:

**I don't own the Harry Potter universe, I am borrowing it to satisfy my own ends (which are not financial).**

_Additionally_ I do hope any physicists out there (and philosophers for that matter) will forgive the outrageous liberties I have taken with time travel theories in this story, and remember that magic will be magic... Please do read my rambles at the bottom of this chapter. I know they're long but they are, I think, quite interesting (at least if you are interested in my basis for the story).

Just as a warning and apology to everyone as keen on sticking to canon as I am, I have moved Dumbledore's defeat of Grindlewald a year early.

"Scientia potentia est" means knowledge is power.

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it," said some idiot who never had any but who also enjoyed internal rhyme.

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><p><em>.<em>

_September 19th, 1999. Evening._

The war was over, and the world (or at least, the 'world' as the Weasley family might perceive it) was almost entirely rebuilt. It hadn't taken long. The castle was fully repaired in order to open as usual on the first of September, and Diagon Alley was soon back to something like its usual bustling state of business as usual. Even the suspicion and fear had begun to melt away - people's memories were short and, on one day, a year and three months after what had become known as the Battle of Hogwarts, there was no apparent reason not to be wholeheartedly celebrating. Hermione Granger, just turned twenty, sat at The Burrow surrounded by redheads and friends as she opened her presents without the overhanging fear which had been constant for years. Harry's scar hadn't burned for a year and three months: all was well.

Indeed it had been so quiet that it almost came as a relief when something out of the ordinary happened and life, for Harry Potter, resumed normality. Crisis returned.

All was well, therefore, until Hermione Granger vanished from the sitting room of The Burrow in front of their very eyes without any warning, leaving crumpled blue tissue paper and a note where her feet had been seconds before. In the confusion and shouting that followed, Harry picked up the note that had been attached to the paper more bemused than worried at first.

_Hermione,_

_With my most sincere and deepest apologies -_

_And love,_

_AWBPD_

_Time, we must remember, is anything - everything - but linear._

Dumbledore! The Headmaster had been dead for over two years, and yet Harry didn't need the initialled signature to recognise his writing. He pushed back the immediate, errant hope that the great man might still be alive and reread the note. It made absolutely no sense.

Where on earth had she gone? _And love_? That in itself made the whole event even more bizarre - perhaps it was a prank or something? But no, it didn't seem like one really and well, that _was_ the headmaster's writing. Ex-headmaster's. Had been.

"What is it, Harry?" Ginny asked, and the buzzing panic and confusion quietened.

"I don't understand," he replied, still staring down at the strange note. "It's, well, it's from _Dumbledore._ Did anyone see what the er the present was?"

"It looked like a sort of globe to me," Arthur, who had had the most advantageous view, answered after a short pause. "With something in it, a house maybe? And er - snow maybe - and then it glowed softly and then she was just… you know. Gone." He sat down heavily on his chair, looking suddenly older than he had since the war had ended.

"Where is she?" Ron asked, loudly. No doubt he would revert to yelling if Hermione's absence was not explained quickly, even though no one could possibly know the answer.

Yes, normality had resumed.

"I don't know, Ron. But I think there is someone we can ask at least."

"Who?

"Dumbledore's portrait."

_"Oh_. I see. Hogwarts, then?" Ron seemed to cheer a little at the thought of having something proactive to do. "She'll probably be back soon anyway. It'll be alright if it's Dumbledore."

"Hogwarts," Harry agreed heavily, not wanting to disagree with his friend's statement. It would be alright if were Dumbledore, but only eventually. It was reassuring to have crisis returning, but not in a positive way. He had been enjoying actually having the relatively quiet life he'd always wanted.

They apparated from The Burrow to the Hogsmede and strode up to the castle. It was remarkably easy for Harry, being who he was, to get through almost any door, and after he had rung the great bell by the main gate a Professor neither he nor Ron knew came to let them in.

"Mister Potter! Welcome, welcome, let me - ah there we go." The great gates swung open as the man continued, "Come in, and Mr Weasley too, what an honour it is, what an honour."

"Is the Headmistress in her office?" Harry asked brusquely, still made awkward by the attention.

"Not at present, but I will escort you up to her office. I am the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Mr. Potter. Hengist Flume. At your service." The man practically _bowed_. It was very uncomfortable.

"Thank you, Professor Flume. Shall we…?"

"Yes, yes of course, this way Si- er, this way please."

Door to door from the Burrow, it was less than an hour until they were seated in McGonagall's office, although it did take a little longer to be rid of the slightly tiresome, repetitive new Professor. Perhaps the post was still cursed?

"Hello Professor," Harry said to Dumbledore's portrait once he had gone. Dumbledore who had appeared to be quietly napping in his chair woke with a start that Harry was not entirely convinced by.

"Hello dear boy, and hello there Mr Weasley. How very pleasant it is to see you both looking so well fed. And how is the world faring?" he smiled mistily at them, eyes already beginning to close.

"Er, it's fine Professor but -"

"Hermione's gone missing!" Ron announced loudly before Harry could continue. "She's gone and it's all because of your present!"

"Dear me, dear me. No need to shout, Mr Weasley. What is the date today? Can it be that time already? My, time has flown so quickly… it feels like only yesterday that she was here you know. Or perhaps it was only yesterday, although of course it has also been years. Time, my dear boys... time is a very strange thing you know. It moves with such speed when it wishes, and when it does not it drags along more slowly than one can bear. Miss Granger, gone already. Well, there we are. I daresay she will be back in time boys, you must not worry in the meantime. She is perfectly safe, or at least she is as safe as she might be anywhere else."

"But WHERE IS SHE?" Ron roared.

"Well, she may be in Hogwarts by now. I can't really tell for sure; time moves at such a different pace when it needs to you see, as I have already explained." Dumbledore closed his eyes again, and snored softly.

"Here? In the castle? Now?"

"Have you not been listening to anything, Mr Weasley? _You_ won't find her here. Indeed you won't be able to find her at all. She has gone to do what she must, what she has always done."

"I don't understand," Harry interjected before Ron could go off again. "Please, Professor, could you explain a little more, er, a little more _clearly_ perhaps?"

"Is it not obvious? I do apologise. The question you need to ask is not where is she, but _when_ is she."

The portrait looked rather pleased when this managed to silence the two boys as they slowly worked out what he was saying. The moment was over and the other portraits began to wake up from their own afternoon snoozes as Ron began to yell. Very, very loudly. Dumbledore took a _very_ quick nap and managed to wake up again before the end of the tirade. He did hope he hadn't given himself away. If only he still had his sherbet lemons to perk himself up… there was something that made one so drowsy when one sat in the warm office all day, and mustering the energy to visit his other portraits seemed less and less tempting when he could snooze here, in the room he had loved more than any other...

When Ron finally sat down, head in hands, Harry took over once more.

"So, let me get this straight, you're saying she's gone back in time? I don't understand. Will she change something? The war's over… just…why?"

"Ah, Harry. I regret that the theories of time are not more widely studied. Surely you remember your own little dalliance into such things? Herm- ahem, _Miss Granger_ has gone back because she always went back, if you wish to see it that way. I prefer to think that time is not linear, but a coiled rope. I do not believe anything will change. You must remember that she was always there dear boy. I remember her well, such a brilliant, brave child. Still it is strange how one can forget things over the years… I had not quite forgotten her strange arrival, of course, how could I? Nonetheless, until her name appeared on the list of magical children at her birth she had become someone quite different to me. It was hard not to take her away then, but I knew I hadn't before if you see what I mean. Now, time of course is nothing like a rope. You must remember that, Harry."

"But, Sir, you just said it was." The moments in Harry's life when he had felt most truly _limited_ intellectually had always seemed to occur in this office.

"So I did, but it was a metaphor. Time is like a tapestry, or a rope, and yet of course it is nothing at all like either of this things. However, if it helps you to imagine it, we may say that Miss Granger has gone 'back' although of course, she may well have gone sideways or not physically gone very far... but I digress. Miss Granger as you now understand, will return here shortly - I do not know when she will, er _return_ to your lives. However, time moves strangely, and I suppose we will be seeing her soon enough. You may find her quite changed, Harry and you must allow her to tell her story in her own time. It will not be easy, I think, and she may never be able to share it all with you. It has been an awfully long time, after all."

"Please Professor, at least tell us when she has gone back to?" Ron asked, more reasonably than might be expected. He was sitting, head in hands, looking as though he wanted either to kill someone or to cry.

"Well, if you're sure you wish to know? You may not like the answer and there is nothing you can do at present but wait for her to find you."

"We're sure. Please?" Harry spoke this time, with as strong a need to know as Ron himself.

"She has gone to arrive in my drawing room, at the end of July, Nineteen Forty-Four."

_"1944?_ Why then?"

"Because that is when she arrived, dear boy, all those years ago! Haven't you been listening at all? Now, if you will excuse me, it is time for my nap…"

"But that's when -" But it was no use, the portrait was snoring gently and Harry knew that they were dismissed. He wanted to scream with frustration; he _knew_ who was still alive and well in 1944, and he couldn't believe Dumbledore had sent Hermione back to such a dangerous time.

.

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_A little before Midnight, July 24th, 1944_

Album Dumbledore was enjoying a quiet evening at home with a rather large Infernobrandy, listening to one of his favourite plays by the foremost Wizarding playwright of the day, Mungo Yllamastar, about research through time and the many and amusing misunderstandings made by those researching the past. He enjoyed the dry wit and intense intellectualism rather more than the juxtaposed love story. There was little room left in Albus Dumbledore's heart for romance. Three weeks before, he had defeated the only man he had ever loved in a vicious duel and it was not a subject he wished to dwell upon.

Dumbledore's house was not a mansion but a well-proportioned country house in the South-West of England, with elegant Georgian proportions that appealed to his sense of order and aesthetics, and a jumbled magical extension on the end that appealed to his sense of humour. However, he spent little time at Wisteria House even in the school holidays, often being called to London or Hogwarts or fulfilling independent research around the world. Indeed, it was the first time he had been able to relax, almost worry free, for a long time. It was unusual and especially pleasant, therefore, to have an evening to himself. It was particularly restful after the preceding weeks to be able to sit alone in his lovely, lonely, private home. This was not the house he had lived in as a youth as Godric's Hollow held too many painful memories for him as had long been left empty, and this was his tightly warded retreat: a house few had seen.

The sleepy peacefulness of the evening was disturbed completely, however, when a young lady materialised in the middle of his drawing room, the magic around her glowing with a strange colour he could not identify. This was not a spell even he had encountered, and only a mind as quick and learned as his could guess that this was the true colour of magic - Octarine. An ancient magic then, which soothed his pride a little: only such a great power could have broken through his wards.

"Good evening," he said quietly, gripping his newly acquired wand behind the fold of his robe as the girl stared at the room in surpise. "May I ask who you are and how you have come to be here?" Her manner of dress was extremely strange: she appeared to be wearing Muggle clothes but not ones in a style he recognised.

"Professor Dumbledore!" the girl exclaimed, apparently involuntarily. She knew him then, which was interesting as he had never seen the girl before in his life. He was, however, rather famous, so it was not improbable that she would know him. He looked directly into her brown eyes with all his power, but found a room inside, a room with no door and no windows, but shelves and shelves of books locked tightly behind warded and padlocked doors, and retreated back out the way he had come. Nothing to be learned there then. They stared at each other for a moment, and he had the strangest sense she knew what he had attempted.

"This may sound extremely improbable, Sir, but I think you actually sent me here yourself. A few moments ago for me it was 1999 and I was celebrating my twentieth birthday and, well, I opened a present – from you – and the next thing I knew I was here, however many years into what one might call the past," at this point her eyes glazed slightly and she appeared to be distracted, "but it isn't really of course because it isn't _my _past and but it is your present and I suppose it is now also my present… but I don't know how else one would address it. I didn't even realise one _could _go so far through time, although presumably I have only been moved as far as the Weasleys' to here and time itself has – what – rearranged itself around me? But _why _did you send me here? The Dumbledore I knew must have known me before, which means I was here before, as he sent me - that is, that I must have always been here… Sir, what is the date?"

Albus Dumbledore was not often taken aback by the answers of those around him, but this young woman seemed to have a relatively good grasp of the theories of time (at least insofar as that she understood that time wasn't something one could express or understand with ordinary dimensional qualifications) and she also appeared to be unusually, even unnaturally, calm for her situation. It was as though she was thoroughly used to being thrown into surprising situations, although he could think of little that would take one aback more than being thrown fifty years out of one's own time. Perhaps she was in shock?

How very _interesting_ this was. A truly exciting event, and the realisation that later in life he would possibly possess the power and understanding to send someone into a time they had not even been born in was thrilling if it were true - something that was considered impossible by every theorist of magical time travel! He sensed she was telling him the truth, but that was not always good enough evidence when someone's mind was as tightly guarded and compartmentalised as this girl's. Unnaturally compartmentalised. A result of the spell?

"It is the Twenty Fourth of July, Nineteen Forty-Four. Am I to truly believe that _I _sent you here myself? May I ask if you have evidence? I have acquired some new enemies in recent weeks... Why should I not take you to the Ministry immediately?"

"The only proof I can offer is this, Sir, which is the object you sent me and which sent me back. A note accompanied it saying," and here she took on a tone of recital, which lead him to suspect that she was quoting verbatim,

_"Hermione,_

_With my most sincere and deepest apologies-_

_And love,_

_AWBPD_

_"Time, we must remember, is anything, everything, but linear._ And then the globe glowed – a colour I can't describe really but a sort of… greenish purple I suppose – and well, here I am. That's all I've got as far as evidence goes, I'm afraid."

Her remarkable poise remained as she held the globe out to him. He nodded simply, although he did not take it: one did not lightly touch objects of such power until their origins were certified.

"I will examine it later, Miss Hermione... Hermione what, if I may ask?"

"Granger, but I suppose if I am to stay here for any extended period I should not use that name. I've already broken one of the fundamental laws of time travel by talking to you and letting you know that I am from the future, but you did send me here – is that alright do you think? Or will I have changed things? But then of course I've already been here, or at least I've always been here, so perhaps anything I have done has already had its effect by my lifetime and I just didn't know. This is really very strange even for me. I think I may be starting to panic. Could I possibly have a glass of brandy, Sir?"

And Albus Dumbledore actually chuckled, for the first time in weeks. It was fascinating to hear her verbalise her thoughts as her mind was clearly a sharp one. How very, very, _very _interesting she was. He yearned to ask her to tell him the future... but could he bear the knowledge? The power it would give him? No, he must restrain himself. Merlin knew the temptation to try to use his knowledge would be too overwhelming. A burden few could bear.

He waved a hand and the brandy rose up and poured itself into a glass, (which had only a few seconds previously existed as a pen). She did not seem surprised at this careless display wandless magic which indicated once more that her story was indeed true, and that she had known him before, or rather - later.

One aspect of the note she claimed her had sent her did puzzle him. He had apparently sent her his _love._ Love – for him to have expressed love to a twenty year old indicated a familial connection or a very long-standing friendship. Certainly not romantic - even ignoring his age at that time she was female.

"What is our connection in my future and your past, Miss Granger?"

"You were my Headmaster. And – well, I can't really say because it would reveal too much but there was a Dark Wizard whose attempts for control you stood against, leading a secret group of which I was a member. So we had interaction away from Hogwarts and you were not simply a Headmaster to me but we were not so very _close_." She paused and appeared to consider her next words carefully, before continuing, "If you are wondering why you might have sent me love, it is not something you had ever expressed before. I was a bit surprised really, but then perhaps we have spent more time together in this period. Or will spend, I mean. You did explain to a friend of mine the very great power of love, which you believed would um aid us in the war. I think I can tell you it did without giving too much away... everyone needs some surety over their ideas so if you remember this conversation one day you were – I mean you will be – right to tell Harry about love."

Harry. Albus wondered with a twinge of unease why he would one day find himself explaining the power of love to a young boy, but pushed it aside. If she were to be believed, there would be another dark wizard for him to stand against. Would it never end?

"Ah, thank you Miss Granger. I will endeavour to remember. However, it is getting late and as I find myself inclined to believe your story at present, I request that you go to bed and we will talk further tomorrow when I have had a little more time to absorb this situation. Are you perhaps... hungry?"

"A little actually. I feel as though I have come a very long way. Which I suppose I have really. Where should I sleep? Is there an Inn close by that I could go to perhaps?"

"You may stay here until further notice. You are a mystery and if I did send you here, I must have had good reason. Until I have fathomed what that is you will reside with me. I will call my house-elf and she will show you to a room, and bring you some food. I would appreciate if you would be kind enough to leave your wand with me, however. A small precaution, you understand. _Jingo_."

"Thank you, that is very kind." She laid down her wand on the table next to him. A sign of trust or did she have another concealed in her strange clothing?

The house elf appeared and Hermione was pleased to see the little creature dressed in a dark blue smock, looking much cleaner and better fed than Winky or Dobby had been. But then, she recalled, the house-elves at Hogwarts were always well-fed and well-presented. Still, it was _slavery_. She held her tongue, however: there were far more important things to worry about at present. _Or at past_, she thought darkly. And she obviously hadn't managed to sort that particular issue out yet. It was only starting to really settle on her that this was really happening, that it was not a strange dream, or even a prank by the twins.

"Please find a room for Miss Hermione and give her some supper, Jingo. And after that you may go to bed, as I may be occupied for some time. Thank you."

.

Left alone, Dumbledore looked down at the globe. The magical snow within it had settled and he realised that the house within was his house, _this_ house. He stared at it in contemplation. The likelihood of it being a weapon seemed higher now that the girl calling herself Hermione Granger had left the room, but it did not respond to any diagnostics for dark magic. And so he picked it up. The globe began to glow that strange colour again, and when Dumbledore next opened his eyes he was sitting in the Heads' office at Hogwarts, although it filled with furniture and possessions recognisably his own and not Armando Dippet's. Across from him, at the desk, was an older version of himself. He would be Headmaster, as she had said.

"Hello," he greeted himself politely. "Where are we?"

"We are simply within your mind. I have not pulled myself across space and time. I have… left an imprint on the globe, rather like a portrait. It will not last long and will fade when you are returned to yourself, so we must be succinct. I remember how bemused I was by Miss Granger's presence so allow me to explain. She is important, and you must trust her implicitly. She may at times appear to be… tempted, but have faith in her. In my own memory of the time you are now living, I adopted Miss Granger as a cousin in order to cover for her, the daughter of Cerdic Dearborn* who kindly agreed to the lie and indeed became very fond of her himself. You will admit, she has the Dearborn hair… There is surprising power within Hermione Granger, although she is not, admittedly, as powerful as ourself. But she is undeniably brilliant and you must unlock her potential for greatness."

"Why _this_ girl?"

"Simply because it has always been her. One of Time's great paradoxes. She came to me, sent by myself, and so I send her to you. She will go with you to Hogwarts, and you will tutor her as your personal apprentice. She will be the daughter we will never have. Enjoy her company, you need ithe companionship now more than you ever have before."

"To not look into her mind, not to see the future – it is too great a temptation. I cannot do this."

"If you give in, you will learn things you will not wish to learn now. It is better not to have that knowledge beforehand: to always be the one who knows is truly the greatest burden. Besides, her mind is so well protected that to force it open would do her great damage. Her mind has always been organised but the spell that sent her back has locked it tightly. Besides, she will become close to you in a shorter time than you can imagine, and you will find the thought of betraying her trust in that way abhorrent. In this year, of all years, allow her to warm your heart again. Love, despite everything indicating the contrary, really is the greatest power of all. The pain of what we had to do will fade because it was right. Take her to Hogwarts and she can be your eyes and ears in the student body… as well as a worthy recipient of your knowledge, a legacy to the Wizarding World to keep it safe even when we have moved on to the next great adventure. And, of course, she can aid you in this greatest and most secret of your discoveries: how to send her here."

The older Dumbledore's broke off and then his eyes twinkled mischievously. "You may also need to er, _alter_ some birthing records. She will need relations after all. There are certain people, one student in particular, who might be made curious by her background if she sprang out of nowhere. He will be curious about her anyway, due to the favour you show her over him. Allow him this interest but _he cannot know the truth_. Now, I have told you everything of import my dear self, so it is time to bid you good-bye and good luck."

And then the room swirled into silvery grey mist and Albus found himself once more sitting by the fire, looking down at a now empty globe with much to ponder upon, and several favours to call in from old friends. If he was not mistaken, he had just hinted to himself that Tom Riddle was worth keeping an eye on.

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><p>Sorry, we won't see Tom for a couple of chapters. Backstory! Also, she hates him so let's let her settle in first eh.<p>

Octarine is the colour of magic, as everyone knows. If you didn't know that, and therefore haven't read Terry Pratchett, you probably ought to. I have rudely borrowed this without permission from Sir TP, but I hope he will forgive me.

*Caradoc Dearborn was a member of the first Order of the Phoenix. He "disappeared in the first war, presumably killed by Death Eaters". Cerdic _(which is not a misspelling of Cedric google it)_ Dearborn is an uncle I have kindly invented for him. Cerdic Dearborn never married, and so Hermione poses as his illegitimate daughter with the half-blood niece of Dumbledore's father, Percival. This background gives her a strong enough back story, so that she will be able to hide in the past and not be questioned: two prominent men (from prominent families) vouching for her should be enough after all. (It may also have the accidental side effect of making her interesting to Voldemort. I say accidental. Old Dumbledore is scheming already...)

You will meet Cerdic next chapter.

The idea that Hermione can't change the past but that she has always done it comes from Rowling herself: when Hermione and Harry rescue Sirius, and Harry rescues himself from the Dementors he sees himself do it before he has done it. He does not, therefore, change time, but creates a paradox in which he has already done the action he carries out.

I hope that makes sense, because it's the entire basis of my story. And no, this isn't going to be a story in which Hermione can redeem Tom with the great power of love and so change the future, and nor is it going to be a story in which they fall in love and when she leaves to go back to the future, as it were, he suddenly becomes a terrible person and kills lots of people in some sort of twisted venegeance. If I wanted to redeem Tom Riddle, I would have Hermione go back and adopt him, or find someone to adopt him, as a baby and give him a loving home (he would, no doubt, still be an ambitious power-hungry, arrogant, clever little shit but he probably wouldn't become Lord Voldemort. Please try not to steal that idea as I might write it one day, although I expect someone already has, somewhere. It is quite obvious I suppose.)

However, he is incredibly clever and that might be hard for Hermione to completely resist… and this story is my (potentially sick and twisted) need to experiment with how she might deal with true temptation vs her very strong, albeit adaptable, moral code. This is the girl who sent Umbridge off to be at the very least physically harmed by centaurs. Either way, it's very brushed off in the books. She blackmailed a famously vicious and ruthless reporter aged 15 after all. And obviously it is still a romance. Of sorts.

**I would very much appreciate reviews. Obviously. Or I wouldn't be posting this online I'd just keep it all to myself. .**

**I should probably warn you that this won't be very romantic or fluffy. Tom is a psycopath, albeit an extremely sexy one. There will probably be some saucier scenes later on.**

Love,

A


	2. Familia

A huge, huge thank you to all my reviewers. You keep me writing.

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><p>Sleep did not come easily to Hermione on her first night in nineteen forty four, and she lay awake turning her circumstances over and over in her mind despite the delicious supper Jingo had put together, and despite the warm bath and comfortable four poster bed, with grey silk hangings in the beautiful panelled spare room. The night was warm, and through the open window she could hear the breeze stirring the trees and the gentle sounds of the countryside at night, the nightjars singing softly and somewhere in the distance the lowing of cattle. But her mind was restless with questions and concerns and bemusement. She had not realised, or had not allowed herself to realise, the full ramifications of her situation whilst in Dumbledore's presence, but had instead used her excellent compartmentalising skills to put off thinking about what she had left behind. There was no known way back: the spell used to send her here had been one known apparently only to Dumbledore – and he clearly had not invented that yet. She could be stuck in this time, and be middle aged before she was born.<p>

No one had ever moved forward in time, only back. She might have lost them all forever, or it might be fifty-five years before she saw any of them again. Middle-aged in Wizarding terms, but god it seemed like a lifetime to a girl of twenty who had lived through so much in nine years.

Would the years slip past quickly, blurring their faces into distant memory? Would she remember her parents without that slight look of mistrust and fear, without the realisation of exactly what their daughter was capable of?

Perhaps even worse than the thought of never seeing her friends and family again, was the realisation that _Tom Riddle_ walked freely in this age, that he would be taking up his position as Head Boy this year, Tom Riddle who had already killed three people. Tom Riddle, who had sent his own Uncle to Azkaban in his place. Tom Riddle who would one day, quite soon, become Lord Voldemort. Tom Riddle, who had caused so much misery. And the understanding that no one in the world knew his secrets, except her. Even Dumbledore couldn't suspect the full extent of his ambition and evil. A new burden for her to bear. He was lying in his bed at the Orphanage _alive at this very moment. _She could apparate to London and kill him and be done…

Would she have to live through it all again? The thought was unbearable.

The concern that kept nagging its way to the forefront of her thoughts, as she lay staring into nothingness, was the question of _why_ she was there. What had she done? Had her presence affected the time her younger self would live in? Whatever it was, whatever effect she'd had, had already been felt. Her mind returned to rationality. _All _theories on time-travel of this magnitude indicated that she would not be able to change the past, because she knew what was to come: if she tried to murder Tom Riddle she would be prevented from doing so, because she had already seen his future. Her spell would miss, or something would get in the way, or her wand would backfire. But the temptation to try was strong… the theory had, after all, not actually been tested as far as she was aware, but the lack of any visitors from the future* to her own time (or recorded at any time in the past) indicated that no means of returning to the more distant past had ever been publicised or perhaps even invented until now. Or not now, but whenever Dumbledore managed to find the way, or she did, or someone did and told Dumbledore. The only evidence that it was at all possible was her own presence.

And, just perhaps, that was the scariest thought of all. She was the _only _person to have ever gone out of her own life-time. The longest recorded magical jump backwards was a year and that had been a particularly obsessive member of the Department of Mysteries who had enchanted his Time Turner to spin 8760 times. He had had to spend the entire year in hiding from his family, friends and from himself.

He had committed suicide three years later.

When someone had tried to send themselves back further than a year, the hourglass within the time turner had simply shattered.

And there was no known way of going forward. Would she be stuck, living a new life in an old time? Would she have to relive the war, without being able to help Harry or herself or Dumbledore _because she hadn't _in her own memory? Did she die in this time?

Would she ever see them again? Her mind turned the same questions over and over, until finally grief rose in her and she felt close to tears. But the tears didn't come, and remained dry eyed and sleepless.

How had it taken her a move fifty five years into the past to realise that she had not been fine - that she had been feeling _empty_ since the war? That _nothing_ had been fine, that everyone's smiles and cheer had been tinged with loss and emptiness alongside the relief. She had spent a year feeling numb, and she hadn't even noticed; too occupied with helping to rebuild what had been destroyed, with returning her parents to their home and memories and accepting that they might never fully trust her again, with looking after grieving Weasleys, helping Andromeda with Teddy, being with Ron and all the drama he caused with the insecurities she worried might never leave him, her NEWTs…

And, despite losing all that, all that her life had become, despite the fear that she might never return home, not see their faces again until she was in her seventies – despite the loss she felt, there was still numbness. She should be panicking, crying, but instead she lay in the elegantly appointed guest room and stared into the darkness, rationally and logically considering her situation. Remembering facts about time travel, and dates and the exact number of turns one needed to repeat an entire year. Things that didn't _matter._ And could she really accept that a part of her had already accepted that she might never get back _and that she was fine with that_? Because she'd deal with it, she'd cope: she might have no choice however much she fought it and searched for a way. But rationality and logic were so very cold. At least during the war she had had a passion and a purpose: defeating Voldemort and getting Harry through it. Nothing else had mattered. And now, nothing really seemed to matter. She had lost her cause, and now she had lost the life she had always known and had forgotten to love while she was living it.

She pushed away her silly, emotional thoughts and the questions she could hardly answer that evening, and locked them tightly away inside her mind, turning its focus instead to Dumbledore. There had been no familiar twinkle in his blue eyes, and sitting up she suddenly realised the implication of this date, this month, this year, for her former Headmaster. He had defeated Grindlewald, his former best friend, partner and, some speculated, great love less than three weeks prior to her arrival. No wonder there had been no twinkle in his eyes! She was a fool not to have remembered sooner. Still, could she mention it to him? She had read the articles from the time, and knew it was anything but a quiet matter, so perhaps he was retreating here from the public eye and no doubt endless questions and irritating gratitude. Very few would know of his connection with Grindlewald at this point, and there would be no delicacy over such a deeply personal and complex matter.

Compassion expanded within her and she resolved to hold her tongue unless he chose to speak about it, but to be as helpful to him as she could. Perhaps she had been sent here at this time in order to give him hope? That was arrogant, but perhaps she could at least be a distraction? Presumably he had invented the spell that had sent her here, and working on something of such complexity might help a little.

And perhaps worrying about Dumbledore, who was probably the last wizard on earth who needed looking after, perhaps that would give her a new purpose. And with that decision sleep came at last.

x

x

x

Her conversation with Professor Dumbledore over breakfast the next morning was stilted and awkward: it was hard to know what to say to someone whose house you had invaded, who lived quite literally in a different time from you… and the part of her that would forever be a schoolgirl couldn't forget that he was her Headmaster and they were having breakfast together, alone, in his house. She made a concerted effort to be cheerful and they stuck to discussing his work, which she had read about extensively, for the first fifteen minutes.

However, after he had finished his second cup of tea (he would go on to drink two more before rising from the table) Dumbledore cleared his throat slightly to indicate a move in subject.

"I have decided that the first thing we must do, Miss Granger, is find you some attire more appropriate for this time. You stand out far too much – even Muggles would stare at you in those clothes, although I'm sure they are very suitable and normal in your time. If you would permit Jingo to take your measurements, I will owl Twilfit and Tattings and order some robes for you,"

"Yes of course – I'm only sorry to burden you with the expense, but if you would keep a list of all the expenses you incur on my behalf, I will pay you back as soon as I am able. My little handbag has more in it than even you might think possible, including some quite valuable books that I could sell."

"Nonsense. Please do not speak of it again, it is nothing. If your conscience concerns you I have a great many things you can assist me with. When your robes have arrived, you may go about as you wish but until then I do beg you to remain within the house. I offer you the use of my personal library in the meantime, although I am afraid I have some business to take care of that will take me away from the house for a few days. You should also refrain from performing magic if possible: I have a little er _background work_ to do before you can safely use your wand… The Ministry have certain measures in place to detect unregistered magic users, and it would be best to attract as little attention as possible until your background story is established."

He placed her wand on the table, and she picked up with some relief. He believed her then.

"Professor, you are being inordinately kind. I am extremely grateful."

"My dear girl, I sent you here myself. It is the very least I can do."

Dear girl was a big improvement from the suspicion he had not tried to mask in his eyes for most of their conversation the previous evening. Hermione wasn't sure what had occurred overnight to change his mind but he had seemed far more willing to believe her story this morning. There was a surety in having Dumbledore on your side that gave her confidence; if he believed in her and was going to help her, she felt she could handle anything being in this unnatural situation threw at her. She could cope, and perhaps even find her place here.

"Turning to the future," he continued, "the more immediate future I mean; I will not attempt to learn of my own future or that of the Wizarding World's from you – it is too dangerous for us both, and too great a burden for me to bear. However, we must deal with your own situation and I have a proposal for you. Upon my return, I offer you the chance to learn directly from me, to learn the magic I have never chosen to share with another. I will teach you what I can, and in return I will have assurance that the greatest legacy I have, my knowledge, will pass on. I have good enough reason to believe you are a worthy recipient of this knowledge and even I cannot live forever." His lips quirked into a brief smile and he continued, "In you I will entrust the position I seem to have created for myself – to guard our world against those who seek to take control over it for their own ends. Knowledge is power, Hermione, but only worth sharing if it will used for good."

Her eyes grew large, and the Professor found himself chuckling for the second time in as many days as she apparently lost the ability to speak. The girl – Hermione – stammered her thanks and some assurances of attempting to be worthy of his trust. It was the first real sign of emotion she had expressed, and he wondered how awful the times to come could be to make a girl her age so grave and composed.

And, he realised, in a breakfast which had lasted over forty minutes, his thoughts had not once turned to the man he had once loved.

x

Planting the false documentation of her birth at the Ministry proved to be surprisingly easy, at least, easy for someone of his magical prowess and current status as something close to a saviour of the Wizarding world, and Dumbledore was surprised to find himself actually enjoying the illicit adventure. A favour from an old friend called in gave him the correct documentation, and it required little magical effort and some sneaking and just one Confundus to persuade the Master of the Birth Seal, who was, after all, two hundred and ten and almost blind, that he was stamping a new birth and have it placed within its proper year.

That done, the existence of Hermione Dearborn, born September 19th 1925, daughter of Cerdic Dearborn and Ceilidh Lowell was validated. Dumbledore apparated to a small, remote castle in Wales, as he had arranged with his old friend, and returned to his home by carriage, accompanied by the girl's official new father. Cerdic Dearborn was an immensely clever wizard, a precocious second year when Dumbledore had been Head Boy, who had chosen not to take up any of the brilliant career paths he might have taken but had chosen at the age of forty (after several rowdy years spending the greater part his inheritance and many more than one of the traditional Grand Tours, which had turned into years of travel and exploration) instead to lock himself away in his hereditary home, with all the wonders he had brought back, and dedicate his life to alchemy and academia. Dumbledore was one of a small, select circle of witches and wizards he had kept in regular contact with over the years, and Cerdic had seemed extremely excited about this new 'project' as he referred to the girl. He had not been a handsome man in his youth, but possessed of a wicked charm that had not needed classical good looks to support his eye for the ladies, but just shy of sixty he had become a distinguished (albeit eccentric) figure. His wild, lustrous hair was still a dark brown, with no tinge of grey, and his face livelier that one might expect in one who was, essentially, a hermit.

"My dear old thing," Cerdic filled the carriage as they flew over the Bristol Channel with his booming voice. "I confess I am filled with anticipation to meet my new daughter! I always meant to have one, you know, but how time flies and I find myself nearing sixty without any progeny when my younger brother has already married and had his firstborn. He learned everything he knows from me of course, couldn't speak to a gal without stammering until he was twenty you know. Funny how it all turns out. Still, if I like this girl well enough I'm sure I will do very well by her. I do so love a mystery, and there's nothing more mysterious than having to provide a cover for someone whose background you won't even tell me of! Shocking of you, old thing, shocking. I've a mind to take her back to Wales until its time for Hogwarts. No, no, that wouldn't do at all of course, Merlin knows I like my solitude. Can't think otherwise. The only thing I do resent about this is that that girl, your cousin, the one who you're saying is the girl's mother – what was her name? Oh, I know, Ceilidh, that's it, was a pretty dull chit. I only met her twice, of course, and she was quite a bit younger. Pretty enough I suppose but I'm not sure I'd have taken her to bed. I'm not meant to have married the gal am I?" He asked this last with entertaining consternation.

"No, no. One night is all you need confess to, and my cousin – who I admit I barely knew myself – died fifteen years ago so there's no need to worry about it. She married a Muggle, to her mother's horror I might add, and died in childbirth, which my aunt thought was fully deserved, when Hermione would have been five… at which stage you were given a child whose existence you'd known nothing of and sent her off to some female in your extended family to bring up until she was old enough to teach, and then you educated herself in Wales. I don't suppose anyone will ask, but it is surprisingly entertaining to create this back story for her. A I have already assured you, you will like Hermione, who is both pretty and intelligent, and I suspect rather charming when she wishes. I wouldn't have entrusted this to just anyone, Cerdic, however old a friend." He paused and then added mischievously, "She has your hair, though and her bone structure would fool anyone but your grandmother."

"'Pon my life, does she indeed. And the bone structure you say? The hair's the tell, my mother used to say, not that she'd know being a redhead but there we are. Well, you're a wily old thing Albus and no mistake. Getting me out of my castle after all these years. I've not noticed the time pass but I think it may have been six years since I came this far out of Wales. It's a pleasant change, although I do have an exciting project of my own to return to… I think I've nearly cracked the riddle of the stone you know, but only time will tell. Time, time. How it passes. Pretty you say? Well, I wouldn't have an ugly chit in my house so I'm glad of that. A daughter. Well. How it all turns out."

Cerdic made up for the time he spent alone by fitting years' worth of conversation into the journey from Wales to Devon, something he got away with only due to his infectious, boisterous charm and sharp intellect. The conversation ranged from idle gossip of old schoolmates to complex alchemic theories and, after two hours of flying, the winged horses landed on the lawn outside Dumbledore's home. The house was built of soft grey stone, and had many years ago, been a rectory. It was finely built, with large bay windows and set in extensive gardens, with a small walled kitchen garden in which grew vegetables, herbs and plants, greenhouses for potion ingredients.

x

x

While Dumbledore had been in London, Hermione had been coming to terms with the idea of living in the past, and of being the personal pupil to Professor Dumbledore. And she had realised, in the moment of his offer to teach her, that she had felt a true thrill of excitement for the first time in a year.

Dumbledore's private library had given her her second thrill: it contained hundreds of the rarest and finest books on every topic she could begin to think of, although Alchemy and Transfiguration perhaps had dominance, his two greatest loves, and she had read and read for the four days he had been absent, tucked away in the library, eating and sleeping only when reminded (rather bossily) by his very confident and efficient house-elf.

She was in the library, which had French windows looking out onto the biggest lawn, at the rear of the house, elegantly carved white bookshelves running floor to ceiling on three sides and a fire on the fouth side with a large round library table in front of it and winged leather armchairs which adjusted into a perfect position for reading for whomever sat in it. Even from this vantage point she didn't notice the carriage land until a booming laugh jerked her attention away from her book. Dumbledore had returned, at last, and she felt a surge of relief although she hadn't realised she was worried, because she'd known (although he had not told her) that he had probably been forging her background. A huge risk, one which she could never repay except by trying not to resent his future self from ripping her out of her own life to end up here.

Hermione stood, almost catching her shoe in the hem of her new, pale blue robes – robes that were far nicer than any she'd owned before. The sort of robes she had seen Narcissa Malfoy wear; simple and elegant and much much nicer than the shapeless black ankle length sacks they'd all worn at school*. When she'd first put them on and looked in the mirror she'd looked at her reflection and seen someone she barely recognised staring back, and once again she'd been reminded that everything was different, that she was fifty five years away from where she should be, and that she would be playing a part for weeks, years or even the rest of her life. A part she didn't know yet but that involved powder blue velvet and learning from the most brilliant wizard Hogwarts had ever seen.

"Ah, Hermione – may I introduce Cerdic Dearborn? A very old friend of mine, who has kindly agreed to become your officially registered father."

"By Merlin you're right, old thing, she _could_ be a Dearborn! Look at that hair! Well, child, this is an unexpected pleasure. Always meant to have a daughter, not a son, peskier to bring up, always challenging, but a nice, clever girl... and here you are ready made, almost at a useful age. Not that Albus will let me take you back to Wales but you never know, you might decide to join me in my hermitage."

Hermione wouldn't have believed for one second that this energetic and oddly charming man was truly a hermit had she not read about his life and works in several books, and much of the research he would do later in his life, especially when she had been researching Nicolas Flamel. She had to bite down hard on her tongue not to exclaim that he was _the _Cerdic Dearborn. Then the rest of his and Dumbledore's words registered.

"A father? Goodness, I um well, I wasn't expecting – I didn't think – are you sure? It must seem very strange… and a risk if anyone were to discover…" she trailed off.

"Well, let's not hang about out here," Dumbledore interrupted. "_Jingo_? Ah my dear how are you?"

"Jingo is very well, thanking Mister Albus, and has made the girl sleep and eat as she is as bad as yourself at remembering such things. Would Mister and guests like to have their tea on the terrace? Jingo has taken the liberty of laying it there, as it is such a nice sunny day."

Hermione was surprised to see the house-elf gently, but firmly, directing her master as she had directed Hermione over the past few days. She was certainly different from Winky and Kreacher and their slavish affection, but perhaps Dobby would have – but not, she must not think of such things. She must focus on this present, her future rather than _the_ future and her past.

"What an excellent idea, thank you Jingo."

"Jingo if you ever get fed up Albus it would be the greatest pleasure to offer you a place with me in Wales," Cerdic added. "By far the best elf I have ever encountered."

"Jingo would _never_ leave Mister Dumbledore! Not even if he gave Jingo clothes! Jingo has looked after Mister Albus since her was born and will look after his babies when he finally picks a nice witch, but there is no rush Master – Jingo is still young."

"Well, Cerdic, there you have it."

"Well she's such a determined little thing, knows her own mind and all that. My own elf, Hermione, still insists that it is bad form to be seen. As though we weren't the only creatures around for miles most of the time! He's a clever thing but says it isn't proper to sit and talk to me or eat with me or have a room or anything. I blame my grandmother, he grew up under her reign of terror, poor thing. Still, he makes an exception for New Years' Eve for some reason so I suppose he might be persuaded one day… perhaps he would like to meet Jingo, Albus? Have a little elf or something, however these things work…"

It was, as Hermione knew from her extensive research into the subject, entirely dependent on the family's permission whether an elf could breed or not and in their two hundred year life span, most would have at most two offspring which would be trained to utmost loyalty to the family. She had, however, never seen wizards pay so much attention to their poor, helpless slaves, nor had she seen an elf who seemed to order her master around rather than fearfully await his orders or threats. It gave her hope, but now was not the time to pick up the fight over elvish welfare. That time would come, but it wasn't now – and changing it now might mean that Dobby would not help Harry in fifty years' time, which would have drastic consequences.

Quite amused by the conversation, she followed the two great men around the house to the terrace on the south side.

"So, I am your daughter, Mr Dearborn – "

"Cerdic."

"Cerdic. Sorry. Your daughter, Cerdic, and Professor Dumbledore's second cousin, is that right? Or first cousin once removed? The latter, yes?"

"That is correct, Hermione."

"Professor – did you, er, did you actually break into the Ministry and fake my records? I hate to ask but I was rather concerned and it's such a big risk. It would have looked very odd and under law thirty six c. in the statute concerning new births it's a minimum Azkaban sentence of nine years for faking a child's magical registration and birth."

"Of course I didn't 'break in', I simply called in a favour and did a little er _sneaking_ around. It was rather fun, actually." And there, for the first time since she had been in 1945, was that familiar twinkle. Hermione smiled, and wondered if either Wizard would believe her if she told them that she had broken into the Ministry, twice, and into Gringotts _and _into Hogwarts. Probably not. She still hardly believed they'd managed it herself. And once again she had to push away the memories that swirled up clouding her mind, and force them away, file them back in her tidy, ordered mind.

"How did you know that law child?"

"Ah, well, I read a lot you see and as a bit of light reading one summer I read the laws of the Wizarding World. It was very interesting; they're remarkably outdated and prejuidiced in parts you know and there are some particularly silly ones. Did you know that one law actually specifies that you can be executed for use of accidental magic from the age of five? It's outrageous, the law has been in place since 1207 and no one has changed it. Executed! _And _that any applicants for a post in the Ministry will be considered in order of blood, and if you are related to a person who has held the post before you are considered first, in closest genetic order according to the sub-clauses of laws fifteen-hundred-and thirty-six and -seven. I mean, that's just outrageous nepotism and bigotry! It's positively _feudal_."

Hermione was a little bemused when the two men caught each others eyes and began to laugh.

"Light reading?" Cerdic chortled. "A campaigner at heart are you then, Hermione?" he asked, apparently highly entertained. "Your memory is positively encyclopaedic I see. Well, that's a useful thing and no mistake. I'm forever forgetting things, although Albus here could probably rewrite every book he's ever read word for word. Oh, too brilliant. This girl, my daughter, when I never even know what day of the week it is and still hold the record of forgetting to go to classes at Hogwarts. Ah, Hermione what a gem you are."

She still didn't understand what was so funny, but he was a very eccentric man after all. Perhaps he simply had a bizarre sense of humour?

"I wonder how our Head Boy will find your presence over the next year. It will be an interesting competition, I daresay." Albus commented, with little trace of humour left in his voice.

"Over the next year? I don't understand, Professor." She could _not_ go to school with Tom Riddle, she could not. She would kill him. The temptation would be far too great.

"You will be accompanying me to Hogwarts, Hermione, where you will join the Seventh Year in order to take your NEWTs. You need qualifications, after all, and I'm afraid those are not as easily forged as your birth: Griselda Marchbanks never forgets a student, especially one as clever as you. No, you must take them – just in case, Hermione."

"I can't go to Hogwarts, Professor. I'm very sorry, I will find my own way, but I cannot go there."

"I'm afraid you must, Hermione. You always did, you see."

His blue eyes met her and she frowned, _always did. _How could he know?

"What's that, Albus? Always did? Doesn't make sense, old thing. Don't try and fool me, I see how it is now. The chit's not of this time, is that it?"

"Cerdic… I would not lie to you, old friend, so I will leave the questioned unanswered and you may draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say, Hermione will go to Hogwarts and that is that."

There was a certainty behind Dumbledore's words, a lacing of steel, and Hermione fell silent as she considered the implications. She would be a peer of Tom Riddle. The man who would one day repeatedly attempt to kill her and all those that she loved, a man who stood for _everything_ she hated.

She had thought she could handle anything the past flung at her, but suddenly she doubted herself. If anything could break her, it would be him. At least she would be busy enough to avoid him as much as possible, and, at least within the confines of Hogwarts, he had to maintain the act Harry had described to her. Tom Riddle, brilliant but poor, a model student – and so kind! The very best of Slytherin house.

She cried that night, and wished she could tell Dumbledore everything that Riddle would become. But she could not, and for the first time in her life, Hermione realised that knowledge could be a far greater burden than it was a power.

x

x

* * *

><p>* An excellent point by Stephen Hawking – and although Hermione is sufficiently well hidden, we can assume that not everyone travelling back would have the support of Professor Dumbledore, and even those wanting to just have a look might be discovered. Someone would have been (if it were possible) because people slip up. And it's the law of statistics and all that. So – even if you disagree with that, which is fine because I'm an English Lit student and rely on Wikipedia and my father to explain theories to me, you can take my word as the author that Hermione is the only person who will travel back in time this far. And that is My Word and thusly Law and I'm going to go and be smug about my power over this borrowed universe for a little while.<p>

And then remember that I wanted Tom Riddle to be in this chapter, for all my readers' sake, but Cerdic sort of took over and then, well, you've read it.

Speaking of Cerdic, if you have a strange urge to hear his voice you may choose to YouTube Henry Blofeld (but physically they have absolutely no resemblance). If you do this you will also discover why he says "My dear old thing" all the time. He's my favourite character to write, ever, so I will take any excuses to bring him in. He may appear at a Slug Club party later in the story.

* On the subject of robes. I don't know if anyone else was surprised to see the characters in the films wandering around in Muggle-esque school uniforms, but I certainly was. From discussions at the World Cup etc., I have guessed that even the men wore sort of long sleeved dresses, closer to those worn by religious figures than academic ones. Robes for witches (I recall JK mentioning in an interview), and certainly dress robes, would be a bit like medieval dresses - although perhaps with less irritating sleeves. I can't imagine wandwork being convenient with those great big bell sleeves.

Please review- just to say you're out there! It keeps me wanting to write. Even if you hate it.


	3. Twas the Night Before Hogwarts

**This is very much an interlude chapter, and I'm really sorry for that. I'm also sorry it's taken so long to update but thank you so much for all the kind reviews - I read them all and try and reply to any questions and I am grateful for every single one. **

There's a big difference between hand-me-downs, like the Weasleys, and the way the upper/upper middle classes sensibly reuse things. In Britiain it's currently a mark of status to have old things – evidence of family – so I've used that here... Hermione's personal motto, if she had such a thing, would almost certainly be "Always be prepared" so that's been fun to explore.

According to Pottermore, all students _have _to get the Hogwarts Express, which is why she doesn't just go with Dumbledore.

* * *

><p>Hermione was packing her trunk for the third time, meticulously checking every last item to ensure it supported her story. The weeks had slipped by quickly and it was the thirty-first of August. Tomorrow, Cerdic would take her to Kings Cross to catch the Hogwarts Express. She wondered whether the train would be the same. To numb her panic she folded and refolded robes, and checked every single object. It had initially baffled her as the two older wizards took almost childish delight in preparing her, in ensuring that her identity was complete. There could be no possibility of suspicion over her real identity: if anyone were to find out when she had really come from she would be in terrible danger from all sides. She had even been to the castle in Wales for a weekend to explore it so that she would be able to imagine growing up there if anyone asked her. Even her possessions had to work towards keeping the secret: her leather trunk had belonged to Cerdic's cousin Hellawes and had returned with her from Wales. It was a relatively standard magical trunk, with three magical compartments, depending on how far you turned the key, and Hermione had added a fourth, secret and heavily warded, in which she stored the various bits Cerdic had packed up. There was some old looking jewellery that Hermione suspected was goblin made, and which she would probably never have occasion to wear, a painting of the castle and one of the glorious Welsh landscape surrounding it. The minor details of life that had to be gathered together to create an image of a life lived: the old inkwell with the silver cap, enchanted never to spill or run dry, the writing set, a miniature of Cerdic (which spent most of its time asleep), a collection of books – she had already memorised all the family records – from the library, potions equipment, a telescope.<p>

At last, tired of the incessant folding and refolding and examining of the objects that represented her new life, Hermione's mind turned, inevitably perhaps, to Hogwarts itself. To the boy with black hair and a pale face, a face she had never seen in person but which had infiltrated her mind and dreams every time she wore Slytherin's locket. Handsome, charming Tom Riddle - _orphaned but brilliant._ The cleverest boy in Britain and the most evil...

She would have to work very hard to avoid drawing attention to herself: for her own sanity's sake she had to blend into this period as much as possible, but a large part of that meant not showing fear around him. She wondered how powerful he already was and the sick feeling that had been slowly building over the previous week overcame her. She ran to the adjoined bathroom and violently emptied her stomach.

She was unusually quiet at dinner that evening, and prodded at her food listlessly. Sensitive to her preoccupied state, Cerdic and Professor Dumbledore spoke to each other, and left to her thoughts. She was remembering the horcrux Tom, tempting her, telling her to go to _him_, that he'd make an exception for her because she was so beautiful, so brilliant. That Harry and Ron would never see past her bookishness and see the bravery within. That Harry would always always value Ron's friendship over hers, even though she was the only one who'd never left him, who'd always _always_ believed in him and stuck by him. It would whisper to her that life with Ron would be an unending monotony, twisting her own vision of their future into suburban hell. In her dreams he would stroke her hair and tell her that she was too brilliant for that life, and wouldn't she like to do something really amazing? Didn't she _want_ everyone to recognise what she was really capable of? To see that it was she who had consistently outwitted _him_, not Harry, and not even Dumbledore, but her.

_Without you_, he'd hissed over and over again, _they are nothing. Without you I wouldn't even bother chasing them. Come to me, bring yourself to me and I will reward you, I will show you and show the world what you're capable of... Come to me Hermione. Join me. Show the world what you can really do_. It had been a masterful attempt at seduction, and Harry and Ron would never ever know of the dreams she'd had night after night, dreams that were not of her own making – and some that were. Dreams of torture, of isolation, and dreams where he'd _taken_ her - where he'd made her beg him to take her.

Worse still to recall were the dreams where he had cried, lost as a small child, and begged her to release him. When he had promised to do anything if she just allowed him to feel the sun on his skin. When he had asked her why Dumbledore had loved Harry, had looked after Harry, but had hated Tom and left him to the dogs.

This last had disturbed her more than anything else he'd done. Because it was true, and because she felt the Horcrux's genuine sense of rejection. Dumbledore _hadn't _done anything to make his life in the holidays easier. He'd played on her compassionate nature like a virtuoso manipulating a violin.

Remembering the subtle manipulations, Hermione vowed that she would do anything, _anything_ to avoid his notice at school. Bar the distant relationship with Dumbledore, the background they had created shouldn't excite notice: the Dearborns weren't on the list of the twenty four purest family lines, and although it was an old family they had infrequently married Muggleborns and, more often, Halfbloods. She would be just another witch, neither muggleborn nor pureblood, nor the first half-blood in an ancient family like Harry or like Tom Riddle himself. She would be just a normal witch, technically a pureblood but not a very pure pureblood. As as long as she wasn't sorted into Slytherin, and resisted the temptation to be too clever or too capable, any interest garnered by her unusually late entry to the school would quickly fade. She had even lightened and tamed her dark brown hair so that it was as unremarkable as possible. Everything about her had to be unremarkable.

She hoped no one looked too closely at her new wand, which of the same ilk as Bellatrix's, although not the same wand. It was elegant and straight, surprisingly flexible, walnut and dragon heartstring. A wand that marked her out as extremely intelligent, as _powerful_. A dangerous wand if used to the wrong ends. A wand, the unsettlingly young Ollivander had murmured quietly to her, that, once conquered, could be persuaded to do _anything_. She hadn't replied. She did not want this wand, but the age and origins of wands could be traced, and her own was left safely in the small Gringotts vault marked with her new name.

As she lay in her bed for the last night she repeated over and over again in her head, _I will not lose my temper and I do not need to be the best. _She had, after all, already got her NEWTs (and it was so incredibly irritating that she knew, because she'd checked in the Ministry records, that Tom Riddle had just – _just _– beaten her). But no matter. She would control the stupid, reckless desire to beat him this time around... It would be cheating any way - a hollow victory. And she would try her best to go the whole year without even speaking to him. _I will not lose my temper. I do not need to be the best. _

She dreamt of duelling the Horcrux Tom, of leaving him beaten on the floor.

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><p>I always wondered what the Horcrux said to Hermione.<p>

This is short and interludey because I needed to write something to get me back into the story, but have been trying to work out a lot of the plot details and wasn't quite ready to commit to that yet. Hopefully I will be able to follow it up with another soon (got to do something to distract me from actually revising for my finals!) I think the majority of this story will take place post-Hogwarts. It always annoys me when Hermione instantly engages in battles with Tom or when people portray her as a bad liar. You guys. She's a great liar and really good at keeping secrets. She hid a time-turner for a year, she didn't tell anyone about going to the ball with Krum, and the whole Umbridge incident doesn't really need to be rehashed... She's also really good at duelling.

Please let me know what you thought if you're still out there! Next up... where will she be sorted? I know, but can you guess?


	4. Hogwarts i

Another update? Madness! Surpriiiiise... within a week, not a year this time. Sorry 'bout that.

You have no idea how much time I spend researching minor details (literally I looked up what the taxis were like in London during the war, what is my life). I am writing (or trying to write) a historical fic though and I want to be as accurate as possible. I hope it reflects that.

Usual disclaimer applies, with extra addendum that I actually used some real words from the book here and please don't sue I'm not making any money from this (message me for paypal details if you'd like to donate*).

Thanks SO MUCH to all my lovely lovely reviewers, particularly those complimenting my characterisation of Hermione. I try and stick to canonical characteristics as much as I can, but everyone has their views. She's a bit... angsty in this one, as her little holiday from reality is over and she has to face up to this brave new world...

*kidding.

* * *

><p>London in 1944 was a very different London than that Hermione had grown up in, and she couldn't shake the surreal feeling of being on a film set as the taxi drove slowly down the Euston Road towards King's Cross. She and Cerdic had apparated to Diagon Alley, choosing not to fight the crowds at the designated apparition point in King's Cross itself and taken a cab to the station. Hermione had only seen a little of Wizarding London since she had arrived in this time and the reality of war had passed her by. Out in Muggle London, however, it was everywhere. The damaged buildings, men in Allied uniforms everywhere, the signs of a city in wartime. Even finding a taxi had been extremely difficult, due (she'd realised, but too late to reorganise their plans) to wartime rationing of petrol. She'd already had to adjust to the shock of seeing London as it was – had once been – thirty five years before she'd even been born. Everything felt <em>smaller<em> without the sky-scraping buildings that had sprung up in the interim years, and simultaneously cleaner and dirtier. The sun lit up the streets, breaking through the thin grey layer of cloud that clung to the city highlighting the displacement she felt in this strange version of her own city.

It had been a beautiful morning when she'd been gently woken by Jingo opening her curtains to let the light stream into the lovely room. She had been reluctant to begin the day, but had obediently dressed in her new school robes – so different to how they'd looked in her time, where they had become more similar to Muggle school uniforms. She felt like a Victorian governess in the fitted black dress that fell to the floor. She hadn't chosen the robes, just given her measurements to Professor Dumbledore and he had seen to them, so she supposed that this was standard. She wondered if the boys still wore the old-fashioned style or it they had progressed to trousers. The only things she had actually gone out to buy herself were her beautiful owl, her books and her new wand. The robes were very high quality – she hadn't missed the sophisticated Adjustment charm that had pulled them neatly to exactly the right size and length, or the elegant cut. She had never bothered before, but she supposed the tricky charm did make a difference. They were plain black, as dictated, but the collar and cuffs were subtly trimmed with velvet and a long row of buttons ran down the front. They were surprisingly elegant (and mercifully lacking petticoats). The main problem that she'd faced, however, was what to do about her hair? Whether to style it as the Muggles did in this period or to find out how witches wore theirs. A Muggle style would be easy enough, but might seem out of place on a girl who was supposed to have grown up isolated in Wales. Deciding that it was hard to go wrong with a simple bun she wound it up, hoping it would somehow stay neat. It wasn't a style she liked, but hopefully it would keep attention away from her annoyingly noticeable hair.

Hermione had been sad to leave the house in Devon, which would sit empty until Christmas, as even Jingo followed her master to Hogwarts. Dumbledore himself had left for Hogwarts the night before, having stayed longer at home than usual already and the elf would finish closing the house before joining him there. She and Cerdic had breakfasted alone, Hermione pretending to eat as he talked and kindly ignored her nervous state. Now, as they pulled up to Kings Cross those nerves rose up again. It was far, far scarier than the very first time, because now everything she did and said was a performance, and it wasn't just her life at stake.

"Does my hair look alright, Cerdic?" she asked, waking him up from his nap with a surprising rush of fondness. He didn't like early rises any more than Ron.

"What's that old girl?" he said with a start.

"I asked if my hair looked alright. I wasn't sure what the current styles were and I want to, you know, fit in."

"Oh yes, very nice. Like what you've done with it. Not sure about that colour though, washes you out. Don't have washout hair in our family." Sometimes, Hermione wondered if Cerdic genuinely forgot that she wasn't his real daughter, or if he had simply decided to ignore how she had arrived in such a position and chosen to treat her as one.

"I know it's awful, but I don't want to draw attention to myself... I thought it might help." She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully.

"Better to look like one of the family then, eh. Bloody silly idea anyway. I say, we're here! Come on, we're not running late yet but best get on what." He hopped out of the taxicab with surprising agility, after waving a handful of money at the cab driver (who looked, on closer inspection, much too young to be driving them around). While the man was counting his money Hermione swiftly and silently undid the spells she'd done to disguise her hair colour. She hadn't really liked being mousey brown anyway. Too close to Lavender's hair colour.

Lavender. Even _her_ face waiting in the train would have been a welcome relief at that moment. Cerdic had somehow acquired a luggage trolley and was fending off an overly keen porter who'd either sensed money from their odd attire, or had seen Cerdic's casual attitude in waving far too much of it at the driver. Hermione sighed and went to rescue him. The Muggle was relatively easy to lose once he'd seen the great barn owl hooting crossly in her cage and after loading up the trolley they set off. Hermione had wanted a cat, but something had held her back – a faint hope of returning to her own time and owls were less likely to mourn the loss of their owner than cats. And she hadn't wanted to replace Crookshanks, who she missed greatly.

Eve the station itself was different to her memories of it, and for a while that occupied her thoughts. It wasn't just the station it was strangely and oddly nice to arrive with Cerdic, on time, unflustered, and unaccompanied by a hoard of Weasleys. Different again from that other first time, when she'd come with her parents and they'd been so _curious_ about everything, somehow doubting it was real until she'd actually boarded the train. Her lovely, ordinary, slightly embarrassing Muggle parents, parents who would be missing her. She held on to that memory as they walked through the station, listening to Cerdic recount how they'd done it in his day, and who'd taken him. She looked up at him with a sudden rush of gratitude. He really was the kindest man she'd ever met, and she had grown very fond of his eccentricities. She was proud of her heritage and her own parents, but Dumbledore's choice of adoptive father for her had been a cany one - and even she couldn't deny that having a Wizarding relative made life a great deal easier.

"Thank you so much for bringing me today," she said as they waited for a group of Muggles to move away before they could go through the barrier. They seemed unusually resistant to the numerous anti-attention and distraction charms placed upon. "And thank you for everything you've done over the last few weeks. You've been extremely kind given that I was just thrust upon you."

"What's that? Don't be silly child, been tremendous fun. I'd forgotten how much I liked people, especially Albus. I say before you go you'd better have this. Put a little allowance in your Gringotts account for whatever it is you young things need now." He held out a key and a small bag, but she hesitated, not taking it. "Now come on don't be sentimental. What else am I going to use it all for?" Cerdic had inherited a reasonable fortune, but in addition was one of the few successful alchemists who had managed to create gold from charcoal. However, as he had pointed out in a previous discussion, he rarely spent money and had little use for it outside of the academic satisfaction in the process.

She took the key and bag of galleons, thanking him again and then they went through the barrier. There was still twenty minutes before the train departed, but it was already very busy and they fought through the crowds to find an empty compartment. She was slightly disappointed to see from those who had already changed that the boys' uniforms had progressed to the stage where they wore trousers, but the over-robes were closed at the front, recalling more traditional Wizarding robes.

"Now, m'dear make sure you don't read too much. Must get some fresh air and all that sort of thing." Cerdic's plummy blustery voice was sad, and Hermione wondered if he was going to miss her and Albus's company. It had, after all, been years since he'd spent time with real people...

"And the same for you, Cer- er, Father. Talk about pot calling the cauldron black! Would you please send me the results of the seven metals experiment? I'd love to see them, it sounded fascinating."

All too soon he was gone and the conductor was blowing his whistle and she was leaning out of the window to wave goodbye. The train pulled away, steam billowing to join the clouds and Hermione was alone.

The journey to Hogwarts, the carriages, even the witch pushing the trolley all seemed to be a twisted dream version of her reality. She'd had nightmares throughout her first year where she'd been all alone in the castle, sometimes with everyone else just a cruelly laughing face, sometimes they had no faces at all, and sometimes she was just alone wandering the halls and rooms without passing another soul. This was so much worse, because it was real. There would be no friends there when she woke up in the morning because she was already wide awake. And it was starting to really sink in that she was _alone_, truly, truly alone for the first time since she was a little girl. Even more alone than then because then at least she had had a family.

But, she thought, she _did_ have an odd sort of family here, she did have people she could turn to, even if she couldn't tell them very much of what was really going on in her head. And, after-all, she was used to keeping her emotions to herself. She pushed her melancholy thoughts away - such moping was extremely unproductive - and opened one of her new books to see how much she wasn't supposed to know. Several hours passed and the landscape outside the window grew more rugged as they drew North. She guessed they were near Durham when someone knocked on the carriage door.

It was a tall girl with a blue prefect badge, who put her head around the door and asked brightly, "Hullo, just doing the rounds. Everything alright in here?"

"Yes, thank you very much," Hermione replied.

"Are you new? We've been told to keep an eye out for a few older new students. You're the eldest I've met thus far though!" The girl had moved properly into the carriage now, plainly curious. "Apparently some people moved to America when Grindlewald threatened Britain. Is that what you did?"

"No, I've just never been to school before. My father educated me at home, but we thought it would be best if I did my NEWTs_." And because I've already completed my entire Hogwarts education and should by rights be going to my job at the Ministry, which I started a month ago, but never mind that. _

"Oh right, I think I overheard another girl say she'd been home educated as well earlier on. My parents are Muggles so that wasn't really an option for me, but this was better than being evacuated. I'm the sixth year Ravenclaw prefect. Mabel Jefferies." Her tone was slightly defensive, and Hermione wondered if it were unusual to be both Prefect and Muggleborn.

"How do you do - my name is Hermione Dearborn," Hermione said politely, standing to shake her hand. She was pleased that there was at least one other new student who had been educated at home. It made her story far more plausible. She supposed their parents had wanted to protect them from the war with Grindlewald, although it seemed odd to avoid the one place he definitely wasn't going to attack – and it wasn't as though he'd had much of a hold in the British Isles anyway. People did such odd things.

"Is there anything you'd like to know about Hogwarts before you arrive?" Mabel offered, sitting down.

It was quite irritating for Hermione to ask inane questions about the sorting, where to go when she arrived, but Mabel did at least have some helpful comments about the teachers, who were largely different bar Professors Slughorn and Binns, and she seemed perfectly pleasant. After a few minutes of conversation Hermione deliberately let the conversation lull, and the younger girl left to continue her rounds. At least now if she accidentally showed that knew more than she should, she would be able to say she'd been told on the train.

She had had less than half hour of peace to read her book before the next knock came. It was a small boy this time, who looked quite plainly miserable.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I saw you were alone. Would you mind if I joined you?" He was small even for an eleven year old, and had dark red hair and freckles and a slightly tearstained face.

"Er no, no of course not. I say, is everything alright?" _I say. _She sounded like Cerdic already. Or someone from an Enid Blyton novel.

"I'm new, and the prefect said you were too so it would be alright to join you. I was sitting with some others, but they were telling me horrid stories about sorting and one boy said that we had to kill a troll or we got sent home. I don't even know what a troll looks like."

"Don't be ridiculous, of course you won't have to fight a troll!" She laughed gently at him, remembering another little boy who had been scared to fight a troll. "I'm new as well, but my father was at Hogwarts and he said that there's a ceremony where you get sorted – very painless, you just put a hat on or something – and welcomed to the school and then everyone has a big supper and goes to bed."

He pestered her with questions, but she had far more patience with the scared first year than she might have had with anyone else (he reminded her so much of Neville) and after soothing his worries as best she could he mercifully fell asleep so she couldn't give too much away - although she didn't think the little boy, Henry, would be a danger to her identity she still had to keep Moody's motto in mind.

.

The third disturbance, however, did nothing to alleviate the slight tension headache she'd garnered from Henry's questioning. Not long after Henry fell asleep the door opened and _h__e_ stood in the doorway, green Head Boy badge pinned to his robes, the dark eyes in his perfect, pale face assessing her and for a moment the train seemed to lurch off its tracks and she thought she was going to die.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you - I ought to have have knocked. It's Miss Dearborn isn't it? I'm the Head Boy, Tom Riddle. Professor Dippet – the Headmaster – has asked me to check on all the new students and one of the Prefects said you were in here. I hope you are having a pleasant journey?" His voice was deep and smooth, cultured, and certainly not the voice of a child who'd grown up in a Muggle orphanage in London. There was no hint of that previous existence, however.

She swallowed, hoping her voice wouldn't betray the sick fear and repulsion she felt just looking at him. _Loathsome, loathsome creature. _But she absolutely had to be civil and make up for the jolt she hadn't been able to hide when she saw him.

"I must have been lost in my book, you did make me jump! Thank you for checking on me, that's very kind but I'm really fine. It's a been pleasant enough journey. How much longer will it take?"

"Another three hours I should think, we won't be there until after dark. It's a rather long trip up to the Highlands. Have you been to Scotland before?"

He was fishing, but for what? _Why_ had he come to speak to her?

"Yes, a few times."

She hated him. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, and quite removed from her hatred of Voldemort. She hated him for Ginny, for driving Ron away from her, for damning them all to Myrtle's existence, for the dreams and agonies of the tent. She wanted to draw her wand and kill him on sight, and every single muscle and nerve in her body was screaming at her to get away from this man, to get away immediately. Fight or flight.

"I heard you were educated at home," he continued the conversation and she understood now why he had bothered to come to her compartment. He wanted to find out who she was, and if she was important. "That's very unusual isn't it in these modern times?"

"Is it? I wouldn't know, I haven't met many other people my age." She replied politely, side-stepping his questioning.

After all she'd bloody done for the world, she hardly thought that sitting in a carriage with a sleeping eleven year old and the younger version of the most evil wizard in recent history seemed a fair reward. Not to mention losing her family, friends, and entire _time-zone_. At some level, she was absolutely sure, it was Tom Riddle's fault.

"Are you feeling unwell Miss Dearborn?" Clearly some emotion had slipped out, or perhaps she had gone pale. She certainly _felt_ pale.

"I'm not feeling quite the thing actually. A little travel sick. Perhaps I should try and have a small sleep..." It was as strong a hint as she dared, but she honestly thought if he stayed a moment longer she wouldn't be able to contain herself._ I must not attract attention. I must not attract attention. Not his at any rate._

"I hope you improve soon, perhaps you are not used to Muggle transport?" She just shook her head faintly, giving nothing away, and he continued, "I ought to continue my rounds and let you recover. When we arrive at Hogsmeade Station please join the First Years as they go to meet the Keeper of the Keys. He will escort you all to Hogwarts via the more scenic route." He smiled and it was like a knife in the gut, sending clammy shivers down her spine. He probably smiled like that when he was torturing innocent people and skinning pet rabbits.

"Let's just hope the rain holds off! Enjoy your nap, and good luck in the sorting. I don't like too much house division of course, but between you and me Slytherin is by far the best house." He winked at her. _Winked. Cheerfully_. Gods. She was going to go insane long, long before the end of the year.

She nodded, too disturbed by his attempt to be charming to reply, and sent a thousand prayers of thanks to whatever deities happened to be listening when he finally left.

It was his voice, the voice that had whispered in her ear for _months,_ that had undone her, even more than being face to face for the first time, and she had to take several steadying breaths to hold back the tears. How she wished she could kill him, make him feel even a fraction of the pain he'd caused to so many others. It had been so tempting, but she knew that it was impossible. Any effect her actions had on the past had already come to fruition, and while he'd hardly be alive and well in her time, he'd certainly been there.

It was awfully tempting to try anyway though.

.

There were four other students who definitely weren't going into first year, and they'd taken the first boat leaving Hermione and her new miniature friend Henry to share with two other first years. It was a struggle for Hermione to sit and feign the same combination of emotion - awed, scared, and excited - that almost everyone else was expressing as the boats pulled across the water. However, she hadn't approached Hogwarts this way since her real first year, and as they drew closer to the castle she felt a surge of happiness at the sight, although the enormous castle was probably not the most welcoming sight to the children. But, for Hermione, this was _home_, the only place she really felt that sense of belonging. She'd been removed from the Muggle world for so long that she would never find a home there now, but nor had she felt it at The Burrow, or Grimmauld Place, or even the little flat she had rented after leaving Hogwarts. Hogwarts was home, and for a moment she was back in her time again, and Harry and Ron would be waiting for her – but as she thought of them she realised that this Hogwarts _wasn't_ home, and it was far from being so. She wasn't sure exactly what it was yet, but it wasn't that. _Home is a castle in Wales, Hermione. Home is with Cerdic. You have never been here before. Do not draw attention to yourself. _

Despite her suppressed misery, it was sweet to see the children's first reactions to seeing the castle rising out of the rock, the only lights in a very dark night shining from the windows. Eventually, they were walking up the steps to the Hall and there, waiting to welcome them, was Dumbledore. It had only been a night since she had seen him, but it felt like longer after the awful train ride and she couldn't help the smile that crept onto her face as he caught her eye and winked.

"Ferst years and the other ones," the Groundskeeper said to him.

"Thank you, Mellors, I will take them from here." He didn't smile, in the Hogwarts tradition of making this ceremony as serious as possible, and the first years as scared as they could be. Even parents and siblings rarely told their children what to expect. He waved his hand and the doors to the ante-hall opened slowly.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. Please follow me."

He lead them to the small room off the hall to wait for the other students to seat themselves and began his speech.

"The start-of-term feast will begin shortly, but first you must all be sorted into your houses," he began. "The Sorting is a very important ceremony, as many of you will have heard, and the house that you are sorted into will be your home within Hogwarts. Many of your classes will be with the rest of your house, you will sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. Usually this ceremony is only for the First Year, however in recent years we have had exceptions. Your house is just as important whichever year you are destined for.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honour. I am sure each of you will be a credit to whichever house you belong to."

It was almost exactly the same as Professor McGonagall's speech nine years earlier. Hermione smiled.

"Now, I think we should be about ready to start." He glanced at his pocket watch, and spun around. He seemed excited. "Follow me!"

It was slightly embarrassing to walk through the Hall, being clearly older than most of the group following Dumbledore and she kept her eyes ahead. They, the awkward additions to the group, would be sorted last and she stood quietly in line, as the hat sang its song and then as the long line of Fist Years went up, trying to ignore any familiar surnames. At last, it was her turn and Dumbledore called out, "And, finally, going into the Seventh Year, Dearborn, Hermione."

She sat down on the stool and waited for the hat to speak.

"Well this _is_ interesting, did you know your mind is just like a library only I can't open any of the books?" The hat said in her mind. "A natural occlusionist, so interesting... try and relax a bit or we'll be here all night. Oh now that _is_ interesting. A time traveller I see... and so very clever, but what's this? An ex-Gryffindor?"

_Not there_, she thought suddenly. _Not this time, please. It will hurt too much. I just want peace._

"You don't belong there any more I see that, although you are very brave. Hmmm, you are a tricky one, always harder to sort if they're older, but you are especially hard. Perhaps... yes, I think you would do very well in Slytherin. Very cunning and vengeful, I see. And with all those secrets it might be the best place for you, and you're _so_ ambitious..."

_Gods, not Slytherin either please. I never thought... there's someone there I'd like to avoid._

"Well, perhaps you're a bit passionate and _ahem_ moral for its current inhabitants. Peace you say? Well, I see your mind's made up. You don't really fit in anywhere, Miss Granger-Dearborn but I suppose it'll have to be – RAVENCLAW!"

And that was it. The relief swept through her as she walked over to the Ravenclaw table, who were clapping politely.

_You'd do very well in Slytherin._.. Hermione had often wondered what would happen if Hogwarts resorted their students every few years, but she wasn't sure she liked what the hat had said about her character.

She tried to smile and look enthusiastic as she met the other occupants of her new house, explaining her odd circumstances, trying to remember names, saying yes she thought the Hall was beautiful, but tiredness and a rush of memories were overwhelming her and she once she had answered their questions she sat and ate quietly.

Just before they rose to leave after the speeches and the school song, Dumbledore came to speak to her.

"Miss Dearborn, the Headmaster has suggested that we give a short test to the incoming transfer students tomorrow morning. I apologise for ruining your Saturday, but it won't take long and is nothing to worry about. He would like to check your abilities..." He smiled at her, with a ghost of a twinkle in his eye. "If you would come to my office at nine-thirty, you will meet the other teachers and we will do a short assessment. Now, I'm sure Professor Wolfe is waiting to meet her new Ravenclaws in Ravenclaw Tower. After that, however, I must insist you sleep Hermione. You are very pale."

Damn, she could tell from his tone he was disappointed that she wasn't in his house. She was glad he had acknowledged her by name though, it would be too hard to hide their relationship as well as everything else.

"Yes, Professor Dumbledore."

"Very good child. Now, off you go."

One of the cool-eyed girls who had waited to show her to the tower eyed her.

"Do you know Dumbledore then?"

"Not very well, but he is a cousin of mine and a friend of my father's. We stayed with him briefly this summer."

"Well in that case we're very pleased you're in our house! I hope you got some brains from his side..."

Hermione pretended to laugh, and at last they left the hall.

She'd known from _Hogwarts, A History_ that Ravenclaw was the most beautiful of all the houses but it didn't prepare her for the reality, and she knew as she stepped into the beautiful blue room that she'd made the right choice.

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><p><em>Omg<em> was that...? Did Tom Riddle finally get to make an appearance in my story? What did you think of their first meeting?

Now, you _guys_, did you really think she was going to be in Slytherin? She'd make a fine one, I admit, but part of that cunning means she would never let herself go there unless she needed to... and in my story she wants to be as far away from him as possible. (Heh, Hermione give it up now, I'm not going to let that happen for long...)

We'll see how long she can contain her temper, shall we? Also I want to cut her hair. Shall I cut her hair? I always imagined it quite a lot darker brown than in the films, and much thicker but idk. It doesn't really matter.

Oh, do you hate the robes thing? The film interpretation nearly broke me because they are supposed to be wearing like cassock things, but I didn't want poor Hermione to have to wear a sack as well as be shoved back in the past. I may have mentioned this before... It's a sore spot.

Thank you again for all your lovely, lovely reviews. You are AMAZING. (I started this so long ago.. If I've forgotten stuff or repeated myself from the first two chapters please let me know)

LOVE.


	5. Special

Happy Weekend everyone! It's a gloriously sunny day in England. Disclaimer applies. This was hard to write because Hermione obviously being Hermione knows everything and finds everything easy in class, which is great for a secondary character but hard to make anything but slightly irritating for a protagonist. I hope I did ok.

Thank you so much for all your reviews. Anyone voluntarily opening yet another Hermione Goes to Hogwarts in 1944 is an angel from heaven. Bear with me, it's going to get so much more exciting than that soon but practicalities dictate this must come first.

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><p><em>Special <em>

Hermione did not sleep well in her first night in Ravenclaw tower. She found sharing a room with strangers extremely difficult, and woke up several times in the night clutching her wand. She had the worst nightmares she'd had for a long time, and longingly thought of Ginny who would come and get in with her when one of them couldn't sleep, and they'd fall asleep together or talk till dawn. She had much preferred sharing with Ginny and her year than she had Lavender and Parvati and the other Gryffindor girls.

Her nightmares and Ginny's had often been the same, after all. Seeing Harry's dead body lying there had ripped Hermione's heart out, and every night for months she'd seen it again and again, and in her dreams he never stood up. At other times Bellatrix loomed over her, laughing as she tortured her, casting the Cruciatus over and over again, pressing the knife into her neck, sour breath hissing into her face. She dreamt of the Snatchers, of Fenrir Greyback... of the Horcrux in the locket. And that first night it was all of them together, parading through her nightmares in the cruellest way.

But the most vivid dream she had that night was of chasing Harry and Ron through the Forest, trying to catch them and only getting left further and further behind until she stopped, gasping for breath in a clearing and they walked in calmly, but did not recognise her, and left ignoring her sobbing and pleas. _You're not Hermione,_ they hissed. And when she looked at her reflection in the pool it was not her face that looked back but Bellatrix's. She woke up crying silently into her pillow, furious with herself for letting her past rush back to her.

_This is not helpful, Hermione. That is not your life now._ She had spent the whole day on the train moping, swamped in memories from start to finish. In fact it had started the night before, but she wasn't having any more of it. She had to make a new life, or an attempt at one, or she would go mad. She began the practice she had started in the tent every morning and every night: a form of magical meditation that cleared her mind and helped her relax some of her tension. She had developed the practice after reading Harry's Occlumency books, and had begun to attempt it herself in case she was ever captured. It had proved helpful at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange: the mind healer she had spoken to at the end of the war had told her that it was her unusually well-ordered and compartmentalised mind that had allowed her to resist Bellatrix's torture and to pass out into unconsciousness instead of cracking or going mad.

She rose an hour later, knowing sleep would not return, and dressed quietly. It was a Saturday, and she had picked up in the House Meeting after the feast that it was customary to dress in non-regulation robes at the weekend, but that Muggle clothes were frowned upon. Not that she now owned any fitting for this time.

The first thing she was going to ask for was a single bedroom. She knew that such a room was available, because she had stayed in one over the summer after the war when she had returned to help with repair work. Hopefully some sort of nepotistic exception could be made for Dumbledore's cousin... Something she would have _fervently_ disapproved of before. However, it was hard to maintain silencing charms in a dorm without arousing suspicion, and it would be even harder to explain why a girl who had ostensibly lived out of the way of the world all her life was having terrifying nightmares of battle, torture, and loss. Particularly given that she knew she spoke, cried, and even screamed during them, although it had been a long time since she'd had those reactions before the night before.

She dressed in a pale grey robe, and once again wound her hair into a bun. It made her look plainer than she was, but it wasn't altogether awful. And plain was good, it was exactly what she needed to be. Unremarkable Hermione Dearborn, who no one would think to wonder about later in life and whose face would pass from their memories. She slipped quietly out of her dorm, hoping that she hadn't woken any of the other girls and then caught her breath as she walked into the Common Room. It had been lovely the evening before, but in the early light it was breathtaking, as thought it had been designed exactly for her. It was airy and light, with huge windows opening up the spectacular landscape. Inside the room, the circular shape, and the deep blue of the carpet offset but the gorgeous lighter blue and bronze hangings were calming, an intellectual beauty that reflected the founder herself. Most comforting of all were the bookcases and signs everywhere of intellectual interest, of learning for its own sake that thrilled Hermione. She had always found the Gryffindor Common Room a bit much, as red had never been her favourite colour and that room was _full _of red. She had loved it there but this... this was _perfect_.

Hermione had rarely had enough time to walk for pleasure in the grounds at Hogwarts, and had had little interest in doing so, but when she'd seen the glorious landscape spreading out from the Tower on that lovely misty morning, with the sun just beginning to break through the pearlescent grey she couldn't resist, and set off down to the lake. Scotland was often magnificent in September (when it wasn't raining) with the heather still glowing on the mountains, and the air cool enough to remove the risk of too many midges. It was chilly enough, in fact, for her to wish she'd run up to fetch her cloak before leaving but a warming charm and the brisk walk soon warmed her, and serve to lift her spirits further.

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.

By the time she returned to the castle she was pink cheeked and starving. Her hair had fought its way out of its restraints in the breeze, as it always did at Hogwarts (it was far more unruly there than anywhere else she'd been and she wasn't sure if it was the climate or the magic imbued in every stone). She detoured to the bathroom to fix it before breakfast, but couldn't achieve the same control she had managed the day before. She huffed in frustration, but eventually persuaded it to stay reasonably secure.

Two of the girls from her year were sitting at the Ravenclaw table and sent smiles of welcome indicating that she should join them as she cautiously scanned for somewhere to sit. It was still early for a Saturday, and the Hall was not too crowded.

"Good morning, Hermione. Did you sleep well?" the brunette one asked politely. Hermione struggled for her name then seized it: Ancha Burke. And the other one was... Sophia, she thought, unsure. Selwyn. The family Umbridge had claimed relation too, although there was no hint of resemblance with this handsome, cool eyed girl with dark blonde hair that had looked brown the previous evening.

"Good morning! I didn't sleep too badly, thank you," she lied. "I woke up quite early though and went for a wander. I got a bit lost on my way out! Did you sleep well?" She smiled as genuinely as she could at these strange girls and helped herself to some creamy porridge.

"A walk? That's a nice idea. What did you think of the grounds?" Ancha had blue eyes and pink cheeks and didn't look like she spent her Christmas holidays cursing Muggles despite the connections with her last name.

"Oh they're so beautiful!" Hermione exclaimed, without having to feign the emotion. "I grew up in Wales so I thought I was used to mountains, but it's much more different than I would have imagined."

"In Wales? I'd heard the Dearborns had a residence there," Sophia Selwyn commented.

"Yes that's where my father lives. His brother lives in Sussex, but I've never actually met that side of the family," Hermione responded politely.

"How strange. We're all rather curious about you, Hermione. What was it like not going to school?" Sophia was a odd mix of polite and blunt and those grey eyes were quite sharp. She should be careful around this girl, she thought.

Hermione gave a light laugh. "Well, I don't know – I didn't know anything different so it seemed lovely enough to me! Oh gosh, is that the time? I'm supposed to be meeting Professor Dumbledore in half an hour but I need to get some things from the tower first. How long will it take me to get there and to his office?"

"Not quite half an hour! Relax, we'll make sure you're on time." Ancha again. She seemed the nicer of the two.

"Thank you, that's kind. Now, would you mind telling me all about the people in our year?"

The deflection proved as effective as the escape, and as they walked up to the tower and then over to the other side of the castle to Dumbledore's office she kept Ancha and Sophia chatting with endless questions about the students, the school. Anything she'd wondered about in first year that she could remember. She had tried to convince them that she could find it by herself, but hadn't wanted to press the point when they'd insisted. It was, of course, the set of rooms that Professor McGonagall would one day occupy, on the first floor of the Defence against the Dark Arts tower.

"Thank you so much for showing me the way. You were right, I'd never have found it without you." The lies were tripping off her tongue more and more easily it seemed.

"We usually have lunch at one thirty on a Saturday, so we'll see you then?" Ancha replied.

"That would be nice, assuming I've been released."

They smiled, and left her to it, heading off back to the Tower.

She was actually very nervous about this test now that she was here: she was meeting all her teachers and the Headmaster in one go and she desperately wanted to impress them. _I will not show off_, she reminded herself and hoped she could stick to it, even if it did go against her very nature.

She knocked on the door, which swung open on her touch.

"Good morning, Hermione!" Dumbledore said, smiling fondly at her and jumping to his feet. "Please come in." He was dressed in deep purple robes that clashed magnificently with his auburn hair. He looked splendid, but it was still a surprise to see how sprightly he was compared to the Dumbledore she remembered, who towards the end had started to look so old and worn down and ill.

His office was quite different from Professor McGonagall's, with rich warm red walls, and several of the spindly silver instruments that would later clutter up the Headmaster's tower. It was filled with books, and was quite frankly something of a mess: obviously Jingo was yet to join him for the term.

"We will not be testing you in here for obvious reasons..." he waved a hand vaguely at the piles of books and papers. "I haven't sorted it out since my last research project, but mercifully Jingo will be here tomorrow and will bully me into it. Did you sleep well?"

"I think it's charming. I didn't actually sleep well to be honest Professor –"

" – You may call me 'Albus', Hermione. I've said so enough times..." he interrupted, amused.

"Even at Hogwarts?" she asked, shocked. "I just, I _couldn't_!"

She didn't see what was so funny, as he just laughed in response and decided to ignore it. "I was actually going to ask... I don't want to seem spoilt but if there was any way I could have my own room I'd be really grateful. I have terrible nightmares sometimes, and it's much worse when I'm with strange people. I understand it might look like favouritism, but if there was any way..." She trailed off.

He looked gravely at her, not laughing now, and she knew he wanted to know more, but also that he would never ask her.

"I will see what can be done, but that is ultimately up to the Headmaster. I should warn you that he wants to check that you are capable of joining the Seventh Year, as he is worried that you've have missed the first year of NEWT preparation... That is the reason for these tests. Now, come Hermione. We will be late!"

She followed him up to the Defence classroom, but he hesitated outside the door and frowned at her.

"If you really want you own room you mustn't hold yourself back in there. I want to really see what you can do... You must cast with real strength and conviction, Hermione. Your new wand will not suffer fools gladly and I assume that you have used it enough to win its allegiance yet. A wand like that – it will do anything you ask of it, but first you must tame it and bend it to your will. Have confidence."

She nodded and fingered the wand thoughtfully. He had been with her in Ollivander's when she had acquired it, and perhaps the manner with which Ollivander had handed it to her had struck Dumbledore as strange. She recalled his little customer-satisfaction speech:_ "A fine wand... a very fine wand indeed, even by the standards of this combination. One of the best I have made. It will serve you well, for if you have the strength of mind to tame it, Miss Dearborn... then it will do anything you ask of it."_

She knew that he didn't really mean 'anything'. He meant any spell, but he liked his customers to feel that they were special. A wand that could do _anything_ didn't exist: not even the Elder Wand itself... but if nothing else understanding that wand had opened her to the possibility of power variations in wands.

And walnut wands _did_ have a particularly peculiar reputation for being influenced by – and influencing in return – their owner's magical capabilities. She decided to research it further: it was too similar to Bellatrix's for comfort, although using it didn't feel like using that horrible unyielding _evil_ thing at all.

There were nine members of staff in the classroom, but she could only identify five: Professors Dumbledore, of course, Slughorn, Dippet, her hew Head of House Professor Wolfe, and lastly a very much alive Professor Binns. So that was Transfiguration, Potions, History, and Arithmancy... which meant that he others would teach Ancient Runes, DADA, Potions, Herbology, and Charms.

She hadn't taken the History of Magic NEWT before, because she'd read all the books by the end of her fourth year. However, it would be nice to have a change so she'd asked to take it this year and she hoped that it would keep her mind focused on this present, rather than her past and future.

They were sitting in a line and the classroom had been cleared of all other furniture, except a single chair and desk facing them.

"Miss Dearborn, please have a seat."

_Well, this is intimidating_. She sat obediently, if a little hesitantly and listened while Dippet introduced the other teachers.

"We have each set you a small task or set of questions. Albus, if you would like to begin as she is your, er, _protégé_?"

"Thank you, Professor Dippet. Now, Hermione I am going to ask you to perform some basic transfigurations. We will start at OWL level to warm up and work our way up through the sixth year."

The first were simple conjuring and vanishing spells, and then a switching spell she could have done in her sleep. After a while, as they went through a whistle-stop tour of the NEWT syllabus, she guessed what he was building up to: the hardest piece of transfiguration taught at Hogwarts was human transfiguration. And the test subject was almost certainly going to be herself. As she performed every spell he asked her for perfectly, she reflected that she'd really earned the one hundred and seventeen percent she'd managed in her NEWT. The third highest mark in a century, after Tom Riddle and Minerva McGonagall, she remembered smugly.

"And lastly, Hermione, if you would be so kind as to transform yourself into a cat?"

"Professor Dumbledore that's a little beyond NEWT level isn't it? I thought we were testing Miss Dearborn on the Sixth Year?" Dippet interrupted, fidgeting in his seat. She saw Professor Wolfe catch Professor Merrythought's eye and smirk. Clearly Dippet had no idea what the syllabus consisted of, as she had just performed most of the NEWT level transfigurations right in front of him.

"I believe Miss Dearborn's Transfiguration capabilities to _be_ a little beyond NEWT level, Headmaster. I am confident in her abilities and after all she is a little older than her classmates."

Dippet shrugged, and she took that as assent.

"What type of would you like cat would you like me to be, Professor?"

"Your choice, Miss Dearborn."

Hermione closed her eyes and focused. Animate to animate transfiguration was _extremely_ difficult magic, and morally complex, but she had managed it under Professor McGonagall's watchful eye the previous year, when she had taken a special class on it (clearly not trusting her replacement to teach them), and again in her NEWT. It was exactly the same principle as turning a mouse into a bird, but the human body was so complicated that it required immense magical control and precision. Both Viktor and Cedric had messed it up during the Triward Tournament, which stood as a testament to its difficulty. To perform it on yourself was the toughest test, because, unlike an with an Animagus transformation, you actually had to _become_ the animal. If it were temporary, you would change back after a few minutes or an hour or so when the spell wore off, but it was possible to make it permanent if you were really talented and powerful. She was definitely not aiming for a permanent transfiguration, however.

She didn't say the incantation aloud, but moments later stood before them as an exact copy of Crookshanks.

"Well now that is impressive, Albus. Very impressive indeed." There was a hum of agreement with Professor Wolfe's statement, as Dumbledore untransfigured her with the Homorphus Charm. He looked extremely pleased.

"Excellent work, Miss Dearborn. Excellent. I think that's enough from me now, Headmaster."

Arithmancy was next, and the teachers sat talking quietly as she worked through a set of equations with ease. She already liked her new Head of House, but the fact that she taught her favourite subject was especially pleasing.

"I've finished, Professor Wolfe."

" Are you sure? You have got a few more minutes if you'd like."

"No, I'm sure."

The Professor hadn't asked her to perform an Arithmancy spell, which was disappointing, but they often took a long time and really they were hard to get wrong as long as you were good at maths, logic, and had enough power... And they weren't on the syllabus until Seventh Year anyway.

Ancient Runes was similarly easy, a simple translation and some basic runic spells. Charms she could have done in her sleep, some typically Slughorn questions about the theory behind Potions and asking her to identify three vials similar looking potions. Similarly Herbology was a discussion and practical.

Although all the teachers slipped into early NEWT level questions, it was all much too easy, and she genuinely wondered for the first time if she wasn't going to get terribly _bored_ going to classes every day. She hadn't, in retrospect (although she'd been a panicked harridan at the time) found her NEWTs particularly testing the first time she'd done them. In fact, after sending her parents away with completely recreated memories, hunting down the Horcruxes, breaking into the Ministry, Gringotts, and Hogwarts, and facing Voldemort it had really been a doddle.

The last subject was Defence Against the Dark Arts. The Professor looked relatively unintimidating at first sight, but she knew from _Hogwarts, A History_ that she was one of the most qualified people ever to fill the position and had taught many fine duellists – not least Dumbledore himself. The old woman with the bright blue eyes and iron grey hair was not someone to underestimate, and there was something about her upright posture, tense shoulders, and sharp eyes that indicated she was a lot more spry than she initially appeared.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts is the hardest subject to test in school conditions, Miss Dearborn. Clearly you have no issue performing complicated spells, but do you have the ability to use those spells under pressure? To cast on instinct against an enemy who is aiming to kill? Against creatures you have never seen or heard of... against those whose very souls are rotten... The Dark Arts are the most insidious branch of magic – alluring and seductive. They work on the caster subtly, strongly until they are in control. Part of the curriculum at Hogwarts is to teach our students how to resist the seduction of these Arts when they inevitably come into contact with them. Are you strong enough to resist? Duel with me..."

Merrythought cast, silently and Hermione barely had time to throw a shield up. It followed it with a quick succession of spells, and it took all of Hermione's ingenuity – eventually drawing the desk into one to gain enough control to be able to cast back and get on the offensive and cast some of her own hexes back.

"Not unimpressive, Miss Dearborn. You are a quick and strong caster, and you think well on your feet, although I sense you are not a natural duellist. But you compensate well. It seems Albus has given you a little coaching." She smiled at Hermione, and then turned to Dipped. "I am also willing to accept Miss Dearborn into my class, Headmaster."

Hermione sat back down on the chair, and bashfully vanished the bits of splintered desk around it.

"There is clearly no question of you needing to join the sixth year, Miss Dearborn. It is a pleasure to welcome such a talented student to Hogwarts," Dippet said, his tone kinder than it had been before. "The only question that remains is one of scheduling – you have one extra class as it stands so we must decide which you are to drop."

"I have a suggestion, Headmaster. Perhaps it would be possible in Miss Dearborn's unique case – given her age and her aptitude – to allow her a more flexible timetable? I think I speak for all of us when I say that I would be confident that she would pass her NEWTs with little preparation at this point, so perhaps if we allowed her to er pick and choose her lessons so she could focus on her weaknesses? It would be a revolutionary experiment..."

"Hmm, I'm not sure about that Albus, not sure at all. Either she's a student or she's not, eh."

The Professors began to debate and Hermione wondered if she _wanted_ to be an exception. It would cause talk, whispers... but outweighing that was the thought of being bored for a year. It seemed the other teachers were in support of Dumbledore's idea though, which was exciting.

And though she would never admit it to anyone, it was nice to be the special one, the one people made exceptions for, after growing up with Harry. These teachers hadn't experienced her more irritating classroom habits as a child and might respect her in the way only Vector and McGonagall had at Hogwarts. She had never envied Harry, unlike Ron, nor had she wished for this, but she couldn't deny that it was exciting.

"I would be delighted if Miss Dearborn were able to work with me on some of my projects. As you know, she began to do so this summer and will continue to do so after Hogwarts. I see no oddity in making an exception for an _apprentice_..."

"No, I'm sorry Albus. She's a talented witch, but I don't think we should be making exceptions. You'll have to find the time to tutor her separately."

"In that case, there is one other matter..."

Hermione left the room on a high: she would have her own room, _and_ she had impressed every single teacher! There was nothing on earth that gave her greater pleasure than living up to her know-it-all reputation. She had agreed to drop Herbology, with little reluctance.

She was only doing the maximum number of NEWTs because, hidden under her resolutions and underneath the Dearborn façade, she was still Hermione Granger and she couldn't bear not to at least strive to be the top, even if there was no one to appreciate it except her, Cerdic, and Dumbledore.

She grinned, and went to explain why she was being moved out of their dorm to her former roommates. Hopefully they wouldn't find it too rude.

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.

.

Hermione's first three weeks passed quickly at first, and then began to drag more and more slowly as she sat silently in classes and in the library. _I not will lose my temper. I will not show off,_ she repeated to herself as she fought her own nature to go about unnoticed. Hermione Dearborn, quiet pureblooded Ravenclaw... It was unbearable. Fortunately for her little act, the Ravenclaw girls had obeyed Professor Wolfe's request that not to talk about her unusual living situation to other students in order to let her settle in without too much gossip.

Unfortunately, in her efforts to be ordinary and unnoticed she had far too much time on her own to sit and think and wonder and grow extremely bored and frustrated. She had thought she was bored and unfulfilled _before_ coming back to 1944, but this was becoming more than she could take.

Once students began to specialise, the house divisions for classes broke down, especially as there were only one or two sets for the smaller subjects such as Arithmancy. There had only been one in her time, but there were at least two hundred more students at this Hogwarts than there had been in her time, perhaps even more, and it seemed to be more popular.

She'd known that, known that the wars – both Muggle and Wizarding – had taken a big toll on the amount of magical children at Hogwarts by the nineties but it was amazing to see the reality, to see the Great Hall packed at supper and notice the difference in classes.

She'd hoped, given the additional size of the year, that she might avoid Riddle but there he was in her Arithmancy, Potions, DADA, Ancient Runes, _and_ Transfiguration classes. She was only free of him in History of Magic and Charms.

It was killing her to sit there and watch all those beautiful house points get handed out to other people – particularly to _him_.

She'd had to put a very subtle charm on necklace she had transfigured to avoid notice from the teachers, who were eager to engage this bright new student in class. The charm was a variation on one she'd used to protect the tent but much less powerful.

People would register her presence but wouldn't be interested in it; the teachers wouldn't think to call on her for answers, and other students wouldn't try to engage her in conversation at meals unless she spoke. It was a brilliant piece of magic, even if she did say so herself. However...

It was _awful_. She absolutely loathed sitting there quietly, bored out of her mind, knowing the answer to almost every question and not being able to get involved in classes in order to remain under the hatches. And she hated sitting two rows away from someone she simultaneously hated violently, feared, and wanted to beat.

.

.

It took exactly twenty-one days from her arrival for Hermione to crack. Three weeks of _his_ unbearable smugness and apparently unmatched superiority – three weeks in which she'd fully appreciated how annoying people must have found her at school. It was worse than seeing herself because in him she could see how she could have acted: he didn't even bother to raise his hand very often – the teachers automatically turned to him when they had any difficult questions. Handsome Tom Riddle, so _talented_, so _clever_ and yet so _modest_. She'd had quite enough of it. Her arm was itching to either slap his smug face or shoot up in the air.

And so, on the fourth Friday in September, during the midmorning break between Arithmancy and Potions, she went to the girls' loos, took the necklace off and hurled it out of the window.

She'd had to listen to that arrogant, slimy _toad_ get awarded ten points – ten! – for an answer in Arithmancy that was only _partially _correct. It was unbelievable! Insupportable! Professor Wolfe had practically _cooed_ at him.

_Urgh_. She yanked her hair out of its prissy bun, fed up with playing this stupid role. It wasn't her and she was going to go mad if she carried on carrying on. She blasted a fly out of the air furiously, and then clutched the sink, taking deep, slow breaths to cool her emotions. If she turned up to Potions like this, she would probably blow up the dungeons. And then, suddenly she was crying, great desperate sobs because this was _unbearable_.

She was electrically aware of his every move and expression whenever they were in the same room, like a gazelle grazing near a pride of lions, ready at any moment to run like hell. She watched him without directly looking at him all the time, at meals, in the classroom.

In fact, she never looked directly at him, but she was constantly so aware of him. It made her feel sick to her stomach. Regaining control, she whispered "Tempus" a little hoarsely. She had exactly seven minutes to fix her appearance and get down to Potions.

_There is too much at stake for these amateur theatrics,_ she told the rather dishevelled image of herself in the mirror, washed her face, and picked up her bag. _You are not Harry Potter, there will not be a magical solution to this. You are stuck here, and you have to make a life. So live it, but for Hecate's sake do not mess it up. You've faced worse._

Deciding that if Riddle couldn't answer a basic Numerology question properly, it was no wonder he'd been stupid enough to make seven Horcruxes, she picked up her bag and began the long trek to the dungeons, feeling more like Hermione Granger than she had for weeks.

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.

She was slightly late for Potions, but Slughorn beamed at her waving away her stammered excuse and ushering her in, enquiring after her health.

"Have a seat by Tom over there, Miss Dearborn. We've got an exciting lesson on our hands!"

_Oh no_. She hesitated, but there was no choice – she had to sit next to him and smile calmly, even though her palms were sweating and she could _feel_ the damn blush tinting her cheeks. _No need to be embarrassed, he's the murderous one. You're just a bit late for class, and from fifty years in the future. Stop being so silly!_

"Dearborn," he greeted her, smiling his stupid, smug, beautiful smile at her. He'd definitely fixed his teeth magically, she thought. Orphans growing up in the twenties _definitely_ hadn't had access to that level of dental care.

"Riddle," she nodded and looked away hastily.

"Today we will begin to brew an especially difficult potion. As I told you in your first lesson this term, for those of you who were listening at least," Slughorn chortled, "the majority of this term will be spent on brewing Polyjuice Potion! Now, who can tell me the ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion? You should remember this – I believe it cropped up in the theory section of your OWL."

Hermione's hand shot into the air before she'd even thought about it.

"Go on then, Dearborn."

"Well it takes a month so the first ingredient is time. Then Lacewing flies that have been stewed for twenty-one days, three measures of fluxweed that has been picked at the full moon, two bundles of knotgrass, stir three times clockwise, then it has to brew for eighty minutes in a pewter cauldron. Then leeches, powdered horn of bicorn, and lastly shredded Boomslang skin, and er a bit of the person you want to turn into," she reeled off happily. This was more like it!

"Splendid, splendid! Five points to Ravenclaw. Nice to see you've found your voice at last," he smiled fatly at her.

Hermione sat back in her chair, glowing faintly. The next month was going to be fun – she'd loved brewing Polyjuice Potion in her Seventh Year. And Second, even if that hadn't gone brilliantly.

(And it had been so _unfair _- all her work and she'd ended up in the Hospital Wing and Ha- but no, don't think about them.)

"Now, I appreciate the time constraints on you all so you'll be working in groups of three..."

Her good mood suddenly vanished. She thought she knew exactly what was coming.

"As your marks for this potion will count towards your N.E.W.T I will expect you to record your exact steps for the potion and who has contributed to each stage. Now Tom, Hermione and... yes Algernon I think. Go on then get on with it."He continued to divide up the class and she turned to Tom Riddle. Her partner for the next month.

Hermione's quick mind was already working out how they could have as little contact as possible.

The boy, a Gryffindor - Algernon something, came over to where they were sitting.

"Hi Tom," he said smiling and then offered his hand to Hermione. "Hermione Dearborn right? I'm Algernon Longbottom but everyone calls me Algie."

"Hi, nice to meet you." Neville's Great-Uncle Algie! she thought excitedly, and then remembered that this was the man who had hung Neville out of a window and thrown him off Blackpool Pier.

"Well we don't need to go and find the recipe as you've already got it memorised, Dearborn." Riddle said, smiling warmly at her. She fought a scowl. There was definitely nothing charming about his smile. _Rabbit murderer_.

"Why don't we go and find a room we can use before we get started Riddle? There must be an unused classroom somewhere in this enormous castle." There were loads, actually.

"That's a good idea, Hermione," Algie said supportively. She would have thanked him, but for some reason she suspected he was going to clear off the minute they left the classroom.

"Professor? Is there a room we can use to brew the potion?" Tom asked quietly as Slughorn returned to the front of the room, massaging his head slightly. Hermione would have missed it if Harry hadn't mentioned it, but there, sitting bold as brass on the Professor's desk, was a box of crystallised pineapple. She swallowed. Was this the night he asked Slughorn about making more than one Horcrux? Or was there some other reason he was bribing his Head of House?

"You can use any of the storerooms on the next corridor, Tom. They've been emptied for the class to use as workrooms. Now, Miss Dearborn, just before you go – I'm having a little supper for a few _choice_ students tonight... If you don't have other commitments it would be marvellous if you could join us."

Riddle stiffened next to her.

"Oh, thank you Professor, but I'd have to check if I have an extra class tonight." She definitely did not want to go to one of his little suppers, especially if this was the night Tom had planned to ask about those _bloody_ Horcruxes.

"I'll have a word with Albus at lunch, don't you worry. Eight o'clock. Tom I trust you can direct Miss Dearborn?"

"Of course, Professor." _Smarmy git. _

She followed Riddle in silence to an empty room on the floor above the Potions laboratories, not listening to Algie who was blathering about Quidditch and wind conditions.

"You don't mind do you Tom? I'm hopeless at Potions anyway you know, he's probably only put me with you so I don't fail."

"Oh, go on then Longbottom – but I'm afraid I can't make up how much you contributed on the project diary."

"Thanks! You are a brick, Tom. I promise I'll be around for the next one... just it's such a beautiful day."

And then he was gone and they were alone.

"He probably won't, Longbottom loathes Potions. I don't know why he chose it for a NEWT subject." Riddle said to Hermione as he held open the door to the bare stone room. She hesitated and then forced herself forward. _Everyone loves Tom Riddle. Don't act suspicious._ She did not want to walk through the door in front of him though, and had to fight to control her flight instinct.

"We should be alright without him. It's not that difficult to brew as long as you time it perfectly," Hermione shrugged, pulling out her textbook and wrinkling her nose. "Why has he set us a restricted Potion by the way? Is this normal? It doesn't seem very responsible to me. God knows what sort of thing people could get up to with this amount lying around."

Riddle started laughing at her.

"It's not restricted, just not in most textbooks. There no law against it. Actually, someone requested it I think and he thought it would be an interesting challenge. How do you know so much about it anyway?"

"Oh it's not that hard. I brewed when I was thirteen," she said thoughtlessly, a very Hermione Granger-like note of condescension in her voice, still digging in her bag before realising what she'd said. _Shit. _

"When you were _thirteen_? Why?" he asked, fascinated.

_Cover cover... _the lie tripped off her tongue with surprising ease.

"I saw the recipe in _Moste Potente Potions_ – my Father's copy – and well, I thought it would be funny to transform into him and er go and scare him. But I messed it up and ended up using a cat hair instead. It was _awful_ - all that work wasted." Not to mention the painful transformation back. That had been awful too, she would never forget it.

"What happened?"

"Well he thought it was quite funny, fortunately," she said, smiling as she remembered Dumbledore trying to tell her off in the Hospital Wing while looking delighted that a second year had been so clever. Harry and Ron had never asked, but she'd had to lie and say she'd brewed it 'for a challenge' as Pomfrey hadn't been fooled by the bad transfiguration story for long. "But it took several days for me to get better and that was quite miserable. I definitely wouldn't recommend it. I did brew it perfectly though, so he was quite pleased with me."

"Why did your Father decide not to send you to Hogwarts?" he asked, transfiguring a pencil into a workbench apparently effortlessly. He was pretending to be casual, but something about the set of his jaw and his intense concentration on setting up the room made her think that he was very interested in this answer.

She'd prepared one, however, and the lie came out. Vague, clever Cerdic, precocious, lonely child. The story had been created before she'd even arrived at Hogwarts.

"To be perfectly honest I'm not actually sure. I think he just forgot about it, and then got used to teaching me himself." Hermione thought about that agonising year after her eleventh birthday, when the visit from Professor McGonagall had changed her life. She'd persuaded her parents to go to Diagon Alley and they'd bought all the books immediately. She'd spent her holidays teaching herself as many spells as she could. She smiled softly, remembering that wonderful period when everything had started to make sense – when _she_ had started to make sense.

"Most of the time I read the books and practised and then I'd go and find him when I couldn't do something. We're very different – I found all the Hogwarts books and tried to follow the course. I made myself all these lesson plans..." She'd learn to always lie with a truth if it was possible, which was why people believed her and not Ron or Harry.

"That sounds idyllic." She caught a note of longing in his voice, and supposed compared to the Orphanage it probably did. And he _would_ like the idea of not having any other children around.

"I was very lonely, in retrospect. I grew up without really having any friends my own age." _Not a lie._ Sadly. "We'd better start."

Hermione lit one of her trademark bluebell fires under the cauldron, as he began to count out the lacewing flies. They worked in silence for a while, and she hoped she'd made her life sound boring enough not to warrant further questions.

Oddly enough, however, she'd relaxed in his presence for the first time. Perhaps the actual contact had soothed her, or she'd subconsciously accepted that he wasn't going to drag her off and torture her. Being alone with him had made her, if anything, _less_ scared. He was just a teenage boy.

"What about you?" she asked eventually, unable to hamper her curiosity. She had always wondered what he'd told people at school, how he'd made them follow him, shown them that he wasn't a Muggleborn. "Where did you grow up?"

"In a Muggle Orphanage," he said simply. "I had no idea about magic until I came here. My mother was a witch, but she died at the Orphanage after naming me – she was very ill. I have no idea who my father was."

_Was_ because he was already dead - _murdered -_ as evidenced by the ring sitting proudly on his left hand. She shivered slightly. A truth paired with a lie, and he'd made sure she didn't think he was a Muggleborn.

"That can't have been much fun. Would you pass the scales please?"

"Most people here have no idea what an Orphanage actually is. Apparently such a thing doesn't exist in the Wizarding world." He looked suspicious. Not good.

"Well, I read a lot. We have Muggle books at home. You know. Charles Dickens, that sort of thing."

"How eccentric. What's your connection with Dumbledore?" _This_ was what he wanted to know, why he'd shared a little about himself. He was actually quite transparent.

"With Dumbledore? Why do you ask?"

"I heard he was teaching you outside of classes, and he always stops to speak to you in the corridors. You seem... chummy." _Someone had been sneaking_. She thought of the crystallized pineapple, uncomfortably. Perhaps it wasn't the day he wondered if seven Horcruxes were a bright idea after all. "Everyone's been wondering about you." He looked up and threw her a smile that was presumably meant to be reassuring, but had the opposite effect.

"He's my first cousin once removed, and very old friend of my father's. He has very kindly agreed to give me some extra-curricular lessons."

"Lucky you." Jealousy flashed across his face, smothered with another smile that didn't reach his eyes. She nearly missed it, but his questions began to make sense now. He was intrigued by her family, but that was less interesting to him than the question of why Dumbledore – who had, after all, treated him with nothing but coldness and suspicion from their first meeting – would choose to take her under his wing.

She could tell that he was wondering why she was special, and it couldn't lead to anything good.

* * *

><p>PAIRING THEM UP SEEMS SUSPICIOUSLY CONVENIENT AMIRITE? Who is plotting? Someone is plotting.<p>

I want Hermione to stop crying but I kind of feel like doing an _eighth year of school_ when she should be working and you know, being somewhen before she was born and all alone and having to hang out with the guy she's spent seven years trying to defeat would be quite hard to deal with even for someone so pragmatic and strong. And she does have a tendency of private cries in canon when it all gets too much.

Hermione didn't celebrate her birthday, which was the Tuesday before this Potions class, but Dumbledore and Cerdic both remembered. Cerdic sent her a letter, and she's going to write back soon. We might see it idk.

She's been having lessons with Dumbledore, but they haven't been that exciting yet so I've not recorded them. We'll see them in the next chapter though.

Reviews make my life and I have finals soon so I need all the happy I can get. I'm grateful for every single one.

Thank you,

x


	6. The Slug Club

Firstly, I sincerely apologise for the delay. Finals happened and I rather lost my interest in this story. Partly because I was finding it impossible to really understand how I could get Hermione and Tom to an even vaguely romantic situation, and partly because it's so hard for me to understand why Tom went about everything in such a stupid way. Also because the more I think about the HP world of magic and the society the less sense it makes practically. However, I am reading Crime and Punishment (it's great, read it) and suddenly I had my answer for Tom. So. Motivation/inspiration struck and here you are. I wrote this on a friend's computer and on my tablet as I am in Spain without my laptop so apologies for any typos.

Also the first five chapters have been edited.

x

* * *

><p>"I don't particularly want to go, Albus. I would much rather have a lesson. I don't think the people in that club or the ideals behind it are suited to me. It's blatant and unfair favouritism."<p>

"Hermione, while I understand your concerns I think it is important that you go. I would be... curious to hear about such an evening, so if you will not go yourself I ask that you would go on my behalf. Horace is an excellent teacher but he can be a little susceptible to flattery if it is convincingly applied."

A dilemma then. She knew far more exactly than Professor Dumbledore what there was to fear, but she could hardly report that particular incident.

"Alright, I will go but I am not your spy. If there is anything concerning I would bring it to your attention anyway," she said defiantly.

He smiled. "That is fair enough. Now, you ought to go and get ready. We will meet tomorrow afternoon instead, at five o'clock."

.

Hermione could hardly believe she had been so easily talked into attending what she suspected was essentially a little Death Eater get together. She couldn't begin to imagine what she would have to chat to them about over dinner. Still, she had managed to make conversation with Blaise Zabini in her own time and he had some pretty ghastly opinions so she would have to cope. As it was a school night she would be wearing school robes so there was no need to change, but she decided that she might as well be well armoured against any snake attacks and went to fix her hair.

Her room was in a turret at the very top of Ravenclaw tower. It was probably the best room in the castle in her rather well informed opinion. It wasn't huge, but airy and light, the curved walls painted the same gorgeous pale blue as the rest of the tower with windows looking out in every direction hung with silk of the palest bronze and cream stripes. There was a lovely desk fitted into the wall and a sofa and comfortable chair. It had once been the room set aside for a long ago wife or daughter of the head of Ravenclaw, and was exquisitely appointed, as through she had stepped into a favourite childhood dream. To reach the room you had to climb a little curving staircase through a small door off the main stair. Her door was made of silvery wood and carved with tiny stars. It was rather too fanciful for Hermione's practical mind, but nevertheless it was lovely. A sanctuary.

As Hermione tamed her hair she repeated to herself, _You are not a Muggleborn Gryffindor. You are not Harry Potter's best friend. You do not know to hate Slytherin. You do not hate Tom Riddle. You are Hermione Dearborn. You are homeschooled. You will smile and be polite to these vile people. You will not draw unnecessary attention to yourself. You will be polite. You will smile. You will be polite. You will smile. You will not drop your guard for one single second. You are Hermione Dearborn. _

She had slipped down the stairs and into the common room, hoping to escape without notice but was stopped by a voice calling her name.

"Hermione?" It was Sophia, looking friendlier than usual, accompanied by a handsome dark haired boy whose name escaped Hermione. "I heard you were asked to one of Professor Slughorn's dinners. It's a great honour you know - nearly everyone there is a Slytherin."

"Are they? Gosh. I think he just asked me because he liked my father, actually. I don't really want to go but it would be rude not to."

"I can't come this week as I have to Floo call home. But this is Marcus, he is going too and wondered if you would like an escort."

Marcus. That was it. Marcus Blishwick. She remembered now, because his surname had appeared on the Black family tree. A very pure-blooded pureblood then. Still, he had a kind enough face and aside from the Black connection she couldn't recall the family being associated with anything dark. She had payed so little attention in class in the past few weeks, and had been so quiet at meals that she suddenly realised she still hadn't met all her year in her house. There were more than in her time, of course, but still. She ought to have made more of an effort.

"That's very kind, thank you. It's nice to meet you."

Hermione and Marcus shook hands and Hermione suddenly realised that she was being set up, romantically. He was very handsome in an unassuming way, with warm dark eyes.

"It is my pleasure," he replied and smiled down at her. "I asked Sophia to introduce us. You are quite the mysterious figure."

No no no, that was not what she wanted to hear.

"I'm just a little unused to people," she said, attempting to sound shy, and dropped her eyes to the floor. _Pathetic. That wouldn't fool a first year. _

He didn't seem to find it strange, however, and they set off for Slughorn's office.

"Are you enjoying Hogwarts so far?" he asked, politely.

"Yes I am, thank you. It's been a bit overwhelming but I'm getting used to it." And that was the truth. She was. She was getting used to this strange dream version of her life, if not used to the great _absence_ that had once been filled with those she loved.

"I think you're very brave to start as a Seventh Year. I don't really enjoy these dinners, by the way. It's all a bit Slytherin heavy and awkward but it's a really useful way to make contacts so just try and put up with it. Don't get me wrong, everyone's polite enough and obviously Riddle is really nice for a Slytherin so I think he's a good influence on the others."

"Yes he seems very -" _what? _"responsible."

"That's not how the girls usually describe him."

"Well I have only spoken to him a couple of times. Who else will be there?"

"Avery and Lestrange. They are Riddle's closest friends I think. Then there's Perdita Fancourt, she's a Ravenclaw fifth year. And Anthony Steele, he's a Ravenclaw too. Lorcan McLaid," _future Minister of Magic, _Hermione thought - "and a couple of Gryffindors, Charlus Potter and Jasper Brown. Then Orion and Alphard Black, they're cousins, both in Slytherin, and Septimus Weasley he's a Gryffindor as well. That's everyone I know. Oh - no, Aldfrith Diggory. He's the Hufflepuff prefect."

One other girl then. Typical. They arrived at the entrance to Slughorn's office and Hermione suddenly realised that she was extremely nervous.

_You are Hermione Dearborn. You will be polite and you will smile. _

.

.

"Mr Blishwick, good evening. And Miss Dearborn, it is a great honour to have you join our little company," the fat professor smiled mistily at her, as though she were some prize. "Now, come and meet our little gathering." As Slughorn introduced her to the assorted students, and handed her a glass of wine Hermione smiled and nodded and murmured greetings.

"And of course, you know Tom. How is your potion coming along, you two?"

"Very well, thank you Professor. Dearborn seems to be rather an expert in the subject." Tom smiled his charming smile, the one that didn't even begin to reach his eyes and she mirrored it in turn.

"Now, Hermione, how is your father? It has been some years since I heard from him but I keep up with his work, of course. A very great man indeed."

"He is very well, Professor. Thank you for asking. I will pass on your regards."

"I had heard a rumour that he had made some great progress with certain alchemical matters..." Slughorn winked at her.

The Philosopher's Stone. That was not something Tom should even hear about now. Hermione paused, thinking rapidly. She could see the flicker of interest in Riddle's face. Turning on another smile she said, "Now now Professor don't tease me. He is a very private man, but I'm sure anything of interest is in his papers. He is currently working on a very interesting theory regarding the Seven Metals."

"Well well, is that so. I shall write to him I think, it would be a great honour and very interesting if he would come and give a little talk on Alchemy."

"If you can persuade him to come this far..." she smiled again. She did not want Tom Riddle to take an interest in alchemy. There was definitely no need to prompt him further on the subject. Fortunately at that moment the door opened and Slughorn went to greet the late arrival.

"Alchemy? How simply fascinating. There is so little modern writing on the matter. I had not realised it was such an interesting topic." Clearly something had caught Tom's interest.

"Well, it is very inexact because no two people can use the same recipe. Most attempts to create anything fail even through a lifetime of work. My father has been fortunate enough to have a little success, but don't let Slughorn exaggerate. He largely spends his time getting very dirty and trying to turn charcoal into gold. It all sounds very glamorous and medieval but actually it's quite messy and extremely time consuming."

That was a barefaced lie, and Cerdic had found his formula for charcoal into gold some years ago but there was no need for Tom to suspect that he was anywhere closer to creating a stone. She wasn't sure if he'd heard of such a thing - if he had, surely he would have hunted down Flamel years before he did - but even if this was the only reason she was _here_ she would do her best to keep him away from such a thing.

"I shall have to look into his work," Tom said politely and Hermione smiled, relived. No successful alchemist was stupid enough to publicise what they could do. That was just asking for trouble. She decided to bore him with the details of a less interesting paper and was pleased to see his eyes glaze over and the slight indication of relief as Marcus came to join them.

"Hermione, this is Aldfrith Diggory. Aldfrith, this is Hermione Dearborn."

He looked a little like Cedric, she though. The same calm grey eyes but was darker haired. Handsome, if rather arrogant looking.

Still, she'd take these two over Riddle any day.

The meal itself was uneventful, and she was surprised to find herself enjoying it a little. The conversation varied between topical (Grindlewald, recent politics) and intellectual and altogether it passed very smoothly. Riddle did not linger afterwards and she was relieved not to witness or suspect the day he discovered Horcruxes. Perhaps he already had, perhaps not. Either way, it was not that day.

As she fell asleep, slightly tipsy, in her tower bedroom later that evening she forgot to think about Ron and Harry and her parents.

.

* * *

><p>Not the longest chapter I've ever written and again - apologies for any typos. I think we'll get some of Tom's perspective next time...<p>

Please let me know if you spot any mistakes or inconsistencies!

Love,

A


	7. unaccustomed

I'm not sure if Tom's read Crime and Punishment or if he just thinks along similar lines to Raskolnikov yet but JK Rowling certainly will have - either way if you want insight into Tom's character I recommend at least reading what is referred to as Raskolnikov's essay although it is actually a spoken discussion referring to an essay.

"[A]n extraordinary man has the right – that is not an official right, but an inner right – to decide in his own conscience to overstep . . . certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). … if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty bound . . . to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making discoveries his known to the whole of humanity. But it does not follow that Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to stead every day in the market. … [L]egislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed – often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law – were of use of their cause. It's remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage."

_Crime and Punishment_, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I also turned to Wagner for some inspiration with this chapter. It was a tricky one.

* * *

><p>Tom was confused, a condition he was particularly unused to. The subject of his confusion was the new Seventh Year, Hermione Dearborn. Something about her didn't make sense and, as he sat quietly during Slughorn's pathetic dinner and watched her, Tom began to wonder.<p>

If he was not very much mistaken he had (quite without noticing at the time) been masterfully steered away from any interest about her father's work. He knew she wasn't boring: they had had a reasonably interesting conversation earlier that day and yet, she'd talked about a niche and particularly boring branch of alchemy for nearly six minutes.

The strangest thing, however, was that he knew he had _been_ curious about her - curious enough to seek her out on the train. A home-schooled Seventh Year: quite a rarity. Definitely worth investigating. And indeed he had found her even more intriguing upon meeting her simply because she hadn't liked him from the second he walked in the door of her carriage and that was _not _a reaction he was accustomed to either.

And yet, for the entire term until this particular day, he'd had absolutely no interest in the girl. He couldn't remember a single occasion on which he had taken particular notice of her. For _three weeks._ And then today she had captured his interest, very suddenly. In the twenty minute period between Arithmancy and Potions he'd moved from hardly recalling her being in the classroom to being subjected to the forcefulness of her very presence.

That was not normal. _She_ was not normal. He'd known that she was being personally tutored by Dumbledore and he had taken no interest until today. _Why?_ It didn't make sense.

He looked down the table and saw that she was smiling at that idiot Blishwick, warm eyed and genuine. The smile only lasted a moment but he took careful note of it and compared it to the one he had received earlier. No, she certainly did not like him - and yet she had absolutely no reason not to. In fact, he'd made a specific effort to be charming to her in Potions, hoping she would speak favourably of him to that fool Dumbledore so that his suspicion might lift off Tom for long enough for him to actually do something interesting with his seventh year.

And there it was, rising up as it always did, that pathetic part of him that simply wanted to impress Dumbledore. He hated and despised the old man, and yet... and yet just _once_ he wanted Dumbledore to acknowledge Tom's superiority - as everyone else had been taught to over the years.

Tom looked around the table scornfully, keeping his expression of quiet interest fixed on his face. This was supposed to be a collection of Hogwarts' brightest and best. Those with shining futures that would make tomorrow great (and keep Slughorn connected enough to ensure the continuation of his creature comforts and sense of power - the fat old spider spinning his web).

Septimus Weasley was a cretin and Potter was a blood traitor. Fifth-year Orion Black was a madman even by Tom's rather loose standards. He might agree with Tom's ideals and bow to him because he had been shown (quite slowly and painfully) that that was his only option, but Tom knew the boy despised his origins. Black's cousin Alphard was a different matter entirely - he made no secret of his lack of interest in all matters political and seemed to live solely for Quidditch. He had been invited for his surname and nothing else, although apparently other people found him amusing. In fact, as he scanned the room the only creature in this room worthy of any special attention was himself.

He was extraordinary and they were ordinary. Perhaps magically capable, even intelligent, but nonetheless - ordinary.

And it was immensely annoying that that halfwit teacher thought that girl was special. She had everything: a perfect, perfect life, a prestigious and respected name, a clever father, favour from those with power. Someone had marked her out as not ordinary and Tom decided it was time to either find out why, or show the world that she was just like them.

His methods might have become more subtle than they had been but his jealousy made him burn with the knowledge that _he could make her hurt, if he wanted to._

.

.

"Actually, Professor I don't quite agreed with Tom's balancing of that equation. It would be more perfect if -" Again. That was the second time this week that the Dearborn girl had seen fit to contradict one of his answers.

"Well done Miss Dearborn. You have a real talent for Arithmancy. Five points to Ravenclaw and two to Slytherin for an otherwise perfectly correct equation. Take note, class, that the first correct answer may not be the only one. Now, if you could turn to page sixty-three, we will begin the theory behind Arithmantic spellwork."

Twice. _Twice. _

His wand hand twitched.

.

.

"Avery, I want a word."

.

.

_ I can make her hurt if I want to... _

_._

_._

_No. She is too close to Dumbledore. Caution. _

"It's about Hermione Dearborn. Find out everything you can about that girl. Everything. From where and when she was born, to why she is here now. Find out and I will reward you."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Do not speak to her, do not look at her. You may go."

.

.

He imagined her lying helpless below his wand, spilling her secrets, unable to withstand the torture. Begging...

.

.

Food at Hogwarts had always held an extraordinary power for Tom: the first really delicious food he had ever eaten, the first time he had ever felt truly full had been his first night in this hall, unaware of the torture of the night awaiting him. It had been a genuine revelation that this much food existed, that such abundance and taste was even possible.

It had been more magical than the ceiling, scarred with a billion stars in reverence to the night sky, if not quite as magical as the moment he first held his wand.

And yet, as he sat pretending not to watch Hermione Dearborn, he couldn't taste the food in his mouth. She smiled at something and he starved to know what it was about her that had marked her out as special. Her own bedroom. Avery's first report had come in and he had done well: a secret special room for this secretive, unspecial girl. Even the Head Boy didn't warrant that sort of treatment.

A unanimous agreement of her talent from every teacher. That she was, as she'd said, brought up in the Welsh wilderness by a vague but brilliant father. A secret child no one had known about, the circumstances of her birth being what they were. A damned _fairytale._

It wasn't right and he could feel it. There was something else lurking beneath her fading smiles as they sat chatting civilly over a hot cauldron. Something in the way that her smiles never touched her eyes, never not even now, except that one smile in Slughorn's office where for a moment he'd seen the real thing and now nothing could convince him that this girl was normal.

"Tom?" He allowed them to call him that in public. It fit his persona. Quiet, brilliant, brave Tom Riddle.

"Lestrange. What is it?"

"Could you possibly pass the treacle tart?"

Tom ignored him and examined his own tasteless portion before standing and muttering, "I wouldn't bother, it's rather below par tonight. I will be in the Library. Do remember that anything below an E on Professor Dumbledore's essay will not go unnoticed."

.

.

The Library was supposed to be his sanctuary from her irritating, unignorable presence (after all, he thought, if she had a special room why would she bother seeking peace in this hallowed space) but somehow, even though he had left the Hall first she was sitting there, tucked away in the best corner reading what looked suspiciously like a Muggle book. Did she not realise they had an essay due?

"Dearborn, don't forget we need to check the potion later. I allowed that simpleton Longbottom to check it alone earlier as there was nothing to be added but we need to add the leeches tonight." He smiled charmingly to make up for the simpleton comment, letting her share the joke.

"Of course. I've finished my essay so I can do it on my own if you need to work?"

"That's quite all right, I will accompany you. We should go at nine-thirty." As if he'd let her take credit.

"I'll be here."

Tom hesitated. He wanted to know what book she was reading but the thought of sitting with her in the library made his stomach turn. On the otherhand, she would not enjoy his imposition, which would at least make him feel less agitated and out of control.

"Do you mind if I join you? This is much the best corner for concentration - you can't hear the door and the Potions tomes shield some of that infernal whispering."

He liked the look on her face and the tension in her shoulders as she moved her bag across. Her essay was sitting there, and he itched to read it.

"Exactly my reasoning. Take a seat."

He did.

.

.

It was surprising how much more relaxed he felt, sitting next to her. Perhaps because he had taken control of this interaction, perhaps because when she was within reach he wasn't wondering what she was doing, or perhaps because she was actually very good Library company. She didn't sigh or flirt or fidget, just read quietly. After about twenty minutes of enjoyable peace, he allowed himself to glance across to see what she was reading but the title was too faint, cast into shadow by the lamp. He returned to his essay. Agitation again.

_Control it_. Later.

Eventually, she looked up from the book.

"What did you make of the essay title? It was a bit, well, a bit vague to be honest. I was up all night writing it and I think I've referenced just about everybody I possibly could but still - _What is the purpose of human transfiguration?_ Really? In what context?" she huffed.

He carefully placed his quill on the table.

"The object of human transfiguration is obviously dependent on the circumstances, but I think what it really comes down to is power. In being competent in Human Transfiguration you naturally gain power - Drechler discusses it quite well in chapter fifty-three."

"Mmm he does but I think it's a test. However we answer that question is going to be so entirely subjective. And I just know he's going to be cross because I've written an extra three feet and no one wants to mark that."

_An extra three feet_. He hated her. Longer didn't mean better, but still. Three feet.

She put the book into her leather satchel, which resulted in a suspicious thudding sound, and after rummaging around for a while, she picked up her wand and pointed that into the bag. It appeared that she had silently summoned her inkwell and quill as she picked up her essay.

"He said last time if I went over by more than six inches he would _deduct marks_."

"I can have a look if you'd like?"

She paused, as though recovering herself.

"I'm sure you're terribly busy with your own essay."

"Dearborn, it's not a problem." _He never did this but he was so curious... _"Here you can read mine if you like."

They swapped and as he flicked through he saw how very accomplished it was, covering all the required ground and more, but that she was apparently afraid to pick an argument and run with it. Should he help her? She might beat him... but would that matter, really, because he would simply have beaten himself.

"Look, I don't think it's some sort of personality test. I think Dumbledore wants us to make a proper argument so you need to cut all of this, and this and this, and just make that part more didactic."

"I can't cut all of this! And you really ought to have read Brinhaair - here, have a look at my notes (back into the satchel, more weird summoning - what could possibly be inside that bag?) at least to dismiss the points he makes against this part..."

All too soon it was time to go to the dungeons and Tom was more confused than ever.

He had satisfied his curiosity about her academic calibre - she wasn't _exactly_ brilliant, just thorough, but he couldn't remember ever actually _enjoying_ an intellectual discussion with another student before. And she was... challenging. Unafraid to question his ideas (although she'd confessed that he wrote forcefully. He'd liked that).

Enjoying another's company was not a feeling he was accustomed to, either.

.

.

Tom was quiet as they carefully added the leeches to the potion, an unspoken agreement between them that this potion would be sheer perfection. He watched as she tidied away and then sat down, sending a ball of soft golden light into the air to float above her shoulder.

"I'm going to stay and watch it for a little while. I'm not tired and it's still unstable."

"I'll stay. I don't have rounds tonight." And no one really minded the Head Boy being out after curfew if it came to that. Besides, he wasn't going to let her get any extra credit for this potion just for sitting next to a cauldron.

Dearborn nodded and pulled out her mysterious book. He wondered if she would tell him what it was if he asked, and if she would tell him about her satchel. He didn't want to ask though, he wanted to find out.

He pulled out the carefully concealed text on blood-magic that he definitely wasn't supposed to be reading and conjured himself a comfortable chair. She didn't look up but he saw her lips quirk up into a half smile that he didn't understand and then he focused on his book. They sat silently for an hour, until a small noise made him look up. She'd fallen asleep, head tilted back against the wall.

He wanted to rip open her mind and find whatever it was inside it that was calling him to investigate, arousing his suspicions. He had absolute power over her in that moment, and he silently fired a charm at her, just a gentle one, to deepen her sleep until he roused her

. At last, he picked up the thrice-damned book. For all extents and purposes it seemed to be _Paradise Lost_ by John Milton and resisted everything he could cast at it. No secrets there, it really seemed to be a filthy Muggle poem. Why was she reading this rubbish? He opened it to an early page and began to read,

My sentence is for open War; Of Wiles,  
>More unexpert, I boast not: them let those<br>Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.  
>For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,<br>Millions that stand in Arms, and longing wait  
>The Signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,<br>Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling place  
>Accept this dark opprobrious Den of shame,<br>The Prison of his Tyranny who Reigns  
>By our delay? no, let us rather choose,<br>Arm'd with Hell flames and fury all at once  
>O'er Heaven's high Tow'rs to force resistless way,<br>Turning our Tortures into horrid Arms  
>Against the Torturer.<p>

Well, that wasn't completely boring. He turned to the first page, before deciding to duplicate it. He would browse it at further leisure and find out why she had chosen it. Next, he turned to the mysterious satchel and quietly opened it. It was surprisingly light, although it otherwise appeared to be normal until he put his arm inside and it just kept going.

He withdrew the arm and glared at the bag. It was _bigger on the inside._ She had put some charm on it that made it enormous. That was no great secret. Further examination revealed nothing, just books and various mundane items.

He scowled, replaced her things, returned to his chair, and lifted the sleeping charm.

"Dearborn. Dearborn, wake up. We need to get back to the dorms."

"What? Ron?" she murmured, her voice husky with sleep, and then leapt to her feet, wand out. "What happened?"

He laughed, quite genuinely for once.

"You dosed off, for about a minute. Relax. We need to get back to the houses. It's late."

She had gone quite pale and was staring at him with a strange expression that he couldn't place. Almost as though she knew he had just been rooting through her things. Then she turned, picked up her things and abruptly left the room with a muttered, "Good night, Riddle."

.

.

Whatever it was that had allowed her to relax in the library was quite gone for the next few days and she was surprisingly quiet in classes. He found himself more frustrated than ever and no closer to gaging her secrets. Her unqualified reaction to falling asleep had only confirmed his suspicion that she wasn't quite what she seemed but every investigation lead to a dead end.

"Well done, Tom. Quite your best piece of work. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the argument but it was flawlessly constructed. Ten points to Slytherin," Dumbledore said, actually smiling as he handed him the marked essay. Dumbledore had never, ever freely awarded him that many points before and Tom was both flabbergasted and intensely annoyed.

Finally some validation from the old man, but it left a sour taste. He hadn't gained it alone. Even he couldn't avoid that confession. However, when he turned to not-look at Hermione Dearborn he caught a surprised, pleased smile.

And Dumbledore _had_ only given her five points. Perhaps it was worth it.

* * *

><p>Well, there we are. Very nervous about this one, but I've been wanting to write Tom's POV for a while and I hope I did it credit. I would really, really appreciate feedback here - pretty please with a cherry on top.<p>

**Please note the first reviewer will be able to submit a prompt/something they'd like to see (a spell, an interaction, a discussion, a line, a word) that I will take into consideration for the next chapter.** I can't promise to include absolutely anything but I will try my best .

Much love,

A


	8. Playing with Fire

**Perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down.  
><strong>

― Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

* * *

><p>She didn't start shaking until she was back in her room. The Common Room was mercifully deserted when she arrived back at the tower and she practically flew up the stairs before collapsing, shaking and in tears, onto her bed. She had fallen asleep in front of Tom Riddle in a deserted part of the school at close to midnight. She had never, never in her life felt more stupid or more vulnerable and the worst part was that she had absolutely no idea if he had done anything. He could have. She had been entirely at his mercy. He could have read every detail of her mind - but no, Dumbledore had said it was locked from the spell - that much was safe.<p>

But still, she realised, far more terrifying in its significance was that it meant that at some level she had felt comfortable enough to sleep. He was a vile murderer, he had killed his own father and would one day wish to kill her and yet she had slept next to him. Lulled perhaps by the evening they had spent together - and that was quite another thing in itself. She could just imagine Harry's face if she ever got a chance to tell him (not that she would) - _Oh yes, I know he's a murderous psychopath Harry, but see thing is he's actually a really great study partner and I really enjoy talking to him. _Fuck. _And it's really rare to meet a boy that good looking who also reads. And his voice. I just forgot who he was for a couple of hours. I forgot. _

Hermione did not approve of profanity in general, but there was a time and a place.

How could she have let that happen? Filled with self-reproach for her idiocy she lay awake for hours as the adrenaline slowly drained from her body. When she did sleep, the dreams of home and of monsters with her face were the worst she had had for weeks.

.

.

The incident had thrown her sufficiently that she spent the next few days going through the motions, withdrawn and preoccupied. There was no sensible course of action that presented itself: on the one hand she knew that Tom Riddle was dangerous beyond anything she could have imagined without direct experience. However, on the other hand the boy in the library was not yet Lord Voldemort, and surely it was more suspicious to avoid him completely when he seemed to have taken an interest in her.

And that was the nub of it really because deep down Hermione could recognise that she was incredibly _flattered _at his interest in her. She had paid careful attention to him over her month at Hogwarts and he largely kept himself to himself. He was polite and charming when addressed, and a model student in class but for the most part he worked alone, sat alone, studied alone.

But for whatever reason, probably curiosity, possibly because she was challenging him in class, he had taken an unusual interest in her. She had never seen him working with anyone before and, if she had read him correctly, he had been thrown by it too. Something about her intrigued him and god help her it was heady.

Still, she had been incredibly stupid to let her guard down enough to fall asleep. It was one thing to behave as though she knew nothing of his history, and therefore be as polite as she would to a normal boy but it was quite another entirely to let herself develop any level of trust. She knew, theoretically and from her experience from the locket, how utterly convincing and manipulative he could be. She knew that, and yet she had not acted with that knowledge.

.

.

It was a Friday morning and she was in Transfiguration, exhausted after another terrible night's sleep. Despite that, she had enjoyed the class - even when she had covered the material it was a real pleasure to be taught by Dumbledore, who had a unique presence in the classroom that surpassed anyone that had previously taught her. Excepting, perhaps, and in a very different way, Professor Snape.

"There were a few good points in this essay, Hawkins, but I recommend a more thorough approach to research next time..." Professor Dumbledore said dropping the rather thin roll of parchment onto the desk of the boy sitting in front of Riddle. She was intensely aware of him as she always was, a vibrating sort of wonder at what he would do and how he would react, a tiny part of her brain switched to danger - watch out. Fight or flight.

"Well done, Tom. Quite your best piece of work. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the argument but it was flawlessly constructed. Ten points to Slytherin." She watched in surprise as Dumbledore smiled at Riddle and saw as his face passed from disbelief to a restrained and genuine pleasure she had never seen before. His eyes had brightened and he looked like he was going to actually smile for the first time since she had begun at Hogwarts. The expression was gone as soon as it had arrived, concealed behind one of his fake smiles but for a moment he had dropped his guard.

He glanced over to her and then she suddenly realised, a thought that couldn't be unthought, that on one level Tom Riddle was still just an orphaned boy who had never known love, affection, or kindness and that he yearned for it from Professor Dumbledore more than anyone else - and that Dumbledore's behaviour to him as a child, as reported by Harry was completely and utterly wrong. That any child, no matter how unsettling, deserves empathy before suspicion. He had even been left to go to Diagon Alley alone. An orphan boy.

For years they had assumed he had been born evil because, in contrast to Harry - also mistreated and abused - he had grown up to be a terrible man.

But Harry's first year had been filled with love and Tom had never even been held to his mother's breast. Harry had been with relatives, however ghastly, and Tom had been abandoned to the unimaginable loneliness and cruelty of a Muggle Orphanage in post-war London. Of _course_ he had never understood how to love - he had probably never once in his entire life been shown a genuine kindness. He had never been taught to love. She knew that science and psychology in the Muggle world in her time were light years ahead of the Wizarding World, and in comparison to the Muggles in the 1920s, and so perhaps it was natural that no one had thought that not to show a tiny baby love and affection, a baby whose very experience in the womb with a starving and ill mother had probably been deeply traumatic would stunt his ability for empathy and affection.

She hardly heard Dumbledore as he awarded her points (less than Tom but still the only two to get any, she noted that at least), trying to fight that thing that rose up within her when she saw such wrongdoing. The tidal wave of compassion and social justice that had led her to adopt a hideous cat because no one else wanted it, to love Ron instead of Harry or Viktor or anyone else, to fight for justice on behalf of the elves at the cost of her social status.

_Fuck, indeed_.

And after the lesson, as she walked to Arithmancy Tom caught up with her, and although he said nothing and she remained silent she had felt something change inside her because now, despite the evil acts he had already committed, despite all her knowledge of what he would become, despite the fact that he was already two Horcruxes on his way to insanity, she pitied him for the first time since she had heard his name - so long ago when she was that silly, precocious, insecure eleven year old girl desperate to escape her lonely Muggle existence for the Magical world promised to her in her new books. And how much more magical, how much more important this world must have been for Tom Riddle. A way to escape a life that had probably contained as little joy as it had love.

And Professor Dumbledore had treated him with suspicion and alienation and even left him to go to buy his things alone. How different everything might have been if he had shown the boy the same affection and well, fatherly mentoring as he had Harry. She had seen it in his face, just for a second. No wonder Tom Riddle hated Albus Dumbledore. She knew how deeply rejection wormed itself into your heart, how you could carry it with you forever, a poison far more powerful and damaging than hatred.

.

.

"I just don't think that's fair, Riddle. He's going to get a T on this project if you don't make him stay and help." She was actually cross, it was the second lesson Riddle had let Algie Longbottom leave without helping. They were sitting in the dungeons, later that week, the first time they had spoken since Transfiguration. It was Friday morning and she was tired and confused and fed up of playing a part. It was _exhausting. _She couldn't imagine how Snape had managed for so long.

"Well it's his own fault for skiving off to play with broomsticks. Besides, what on earth do we need him for? This is the easiest project I've ever seen. Either one of us could do it in our sleep. All we have to do now is sit and read next to our cauldron for two hours while we research what we might want to do next term. I think Slughorn's getting lazy. He ought to be teaching us."

"Well Algie isn't researching is he? You're Head Boy, you should try and be a better influence on him! And it's _Professor_ Slughorn."

"Alright, alright - fine. I'll change the record so he doesn't get a T. Will that make you quiet?"

"So now you're going to cheat for him?"

"Good god, you are insufferable. It isn't your problem, and he clearly doesn't care so why do you?"

Why did she care? She didn't even know any more.

"Because I'm not an emotionless spectre who is happy to throw everyone to the wolves? Because I can recognise that people don't always know what's best for them?" Her voice was getting shrill and she cringed internally. God forbid she just shut up and let people live their lives. "I'm going to the Library, this is ridiculous."

She couldn't believe she was storming off in a huff as though he were Ron or Harry but she was so cross! It was just irresponsible and a misuse of his influence as Head Boy to let someone have so much slack they did themselves a disservice.

He didn't join her in the corner of the Library they had both marked as their own that evening, but sat with his Housemates.

.

.

Strangely enough, though, it appeared that he had listened to her, and the following day as she went into the storeroom just after breakfast to check on the potion, she was surprised to see Longbottom sitting there with a pile of Potions books and the Head Boy lounging with a book on the other side of the room in that ridiculous chair he had conjured. She paused in the door, as they hadn't noticed her.

"Tom what about this one?"

"Longbottom I am not here to do your homework for you. I have fulfilled my duties by making you take some interest, the rest is up to you. It wouldn't be fair if I helped you."

"Of course, I'm sorry."

That sneaky _toad_, Hermione thought in surprise. He had found a way to pacify her, for whatever twisted purpose, _and_ he was using it to his absolute advantage - diligent but oh so likeable Tom the consummate Head Boy. Goddamn it.

"Good morning boys, I wasn't expecting to find you here. It isn't on the schedule."

Tom frowned at her and said nothing, returning to his book. She stood there, at something of a loss.

"Well, I suppose I'll leave you to it. It's such a nice day, shame to waste any of it indoors," she said brightly. "See you later. Enjoy Hogsmeade!"

Contrary to popular opinion (well, Ron's opinion) Hermione didn't actually mind flying. She wasn't a natural and would never be first pick for anyone's Quidditch team but she was passable enough. The first time she had flown without fear had been trying to catch the key on the way to the Philosopher's Stone and after that it had seemed silly to be too scared. Particularly after flying hippogriffs, dragons, and thestrals. Not to mention, and this memory still gave her a lurch of fear and pride, now that she knew if you fell from a great height you just apparated.

Although she did say so herself, that particular instance had shown great presence of mind and was one of the moments in the war she was most proud of.

Still, going for a quiet fly by herself was not something Hermione had ever really felt inclined to do. Perhaps because flying had always been Harry and Ron's thing, and later Ginny's as well. Not a ritual they had ever thought to invite her to join. She was surprised then that, as she walked away from the dungeon she found herself heading towards the broomsheds and not the Library. Her newfound interest in the outdoors was very uncharacteristic, but the gathering clouds on the horizon were threatening to break the spell of sunshine that had lasted that week and she didn't want to waste what might well be the last dry morning for weeks.

Of course, she could be researching how to get home or how to get here in the first place but she found that all she really wanted to do was escape for an hour or two before playing her role as a newcomer to Hogsmeade (a village she probably knew better than anyone here). It would be a tiresome afternoon - the Ravenclaw girls had promised to show her around the village and she could hardly have refused as she wasn't supposed to have ever visited it before.

Sometimes all the lies just became too much.

She flew far outside the bounds of Hogwarts, sure enough in her Disillusionment Charm to carry on out over the mountains. She wasn't sure exactly why but the thought of getting into trouble held little fear for her. What did it really matter if she got detention? What could they possibly do to her that she could ever care about now?

There was something so bleak and majestic about the Northern Highlands, the heather on the moutains had faded from purple to brown and green, and the damp mists clung stubbornly to the mountain tops above as she soared over the sunlit streams and forests. Finally, she flew as far as a beautiful waterfall, pouring down into a small loch, about two hours from the castle and landed clumsily. The place was utterly deserted but for a small herd of deer grazing in the distance and the chattering of birds in the silvery birch trees, leaves glowing burnished gold, setting off the damp russet of the bracken below. It was a truly beautiful scene and she sat on a rock staring into the crashing falls and allowing the beauty of the landscape to bring her some measure of peace.

However, beautiful as the scene was she couldn't stay: it was a Hogsmeade weekend and she had been out of the castle for nearly three hours. The Ravenclaw girls would be expecting her to meet them in the Tower and she couldn't linger. She Apparated to the cave outside Hogsmeade where Sirius had lived and flew quickly back to the castle. She was surprised at how much she had enjoyed her fly, but began to wonder exactly how much trouble she was going to be in. She felt a bit sick. She was practiced enough at breaking rules and being both rewarded for that and getting into unimaginable amounts of trouble for it (fighting Voldemort's inner circle for example) but usually she had had a good reason. This had just been selfish and though she hadn't cared on her way - confused by Tom's actions as much as anything else - she cared now.

She was very good at breaking rules but she didn't have to like doing it.

And sure enough, Professor Dumbledore was waiting by the broomshed when she returned. She got off the broom, stumbling again - she really wasn't an expert flier and brooms had considerably improved by the time she had learnt - and stood awaiting her punishment.

"Hermione -" he began but she interrupted.

"I'm so sorry Albus, I don't know what came over me."

"Where have you been, child?"

"I just kept on flying and then came back. I just... just wanted to get away."

He softened visibly. "I suspect I will have to give you detention but we'll leave it at that. Please don't leave the grounds again without informing me."

"Thank you. I won't. I'm very sorry. Can I still go to Hogsmeade?"

"I don't see why not. Try not to get into trouble. I will see you this evening for your lesson, and will speak to the Headmaster about your punishment. Now, I expect your friends will be waiting for you. Off you go."

She thanked him again and rushed back to Ravenclaw Tower, just in time to fix her windblown hair and change before meeting the Ravenclaw girls.

.

.

Two hours later she was safely ensconced in _Tomes and Scrolls,_ after feigning interest rather admirably in a tour of the village. The girls had left her there, with strict instructions to meet them in the pub in an hour. She didn't really need any new books: for once in her life she found herself too far ahead of the syllabus even for her liking - fifty four years too far ahead to be precise - to be particularly interested in any new publications, and Dumbledore had allowed her the use of his own library for research into their (currently unsuccessful) project involving her time travel, and for his lessons. Therefore, she gravitated towards the small section of Muggle literature at the very back of the shop. Ironically it was next to the slightly larger section on the Dark Arts - very mild books only, of course. She had never really spent much time reading the literature of her parents' people, her people, from the moment she had received her Hogwarts letter. She had read fiction voraciously as a child but only because she had read everything with an insatiable appetite. From the age of eleven onwards her focus had been entirely Magic. Entirely too Magical, she thought now as she stared at the clusters of classic titles that any well read Muggle girl of twenty would have read. Perhaps it was time to fill up the bookshelves in her bedroom - and this way, at least she would have something to fill her sleepless nights other than work and missing home and trying to work out when Tom Riddle was going to find out her secrets and the inevitable torture and murder that would follow such an event.

She bought one of nearly everything, from Austen and Chaucer and Malory to Tolkien and Woolf and Joyce. Poetry and prose from Middle English to the most modern options they had. The section was small due to lack of interest but relatively comprehensive nonetheless. She had picked up _Paradise Lost_ (for some odd reason one of the few Muggle books on the Ravenclaw Common Room's shelves) on a whim the week before,and reading it had reminded her of something lost inside her - the possibility of escape to another world that had seemed unnecessary and irrelevant when a real world more fantastic that the books had been opened to her. As the magical world became more normal, and she had been less obsessed with learning everything about it, her life and the lives of her friends had been in increasing danger and then her pursuit of knowledge had become a key part of the battle to survive. She had had little time or interest in fiction.

And so Hermione could hardly remember the last time she had read a novel for pleasure. Wizards did have fiction but it wasn't of the same literary calibre (usually ridiculous romances or stupid and unrealistic epics). In fact all the arts in the Wizarding World, music, visual, literary, were a poor imitation of their Muggle counterparts. Magic, it appeared, stunted creativity.

_"All_ of them, Miss? That must be nearly a hundred books you've got there." the mad behind the counter blinked over his glasses, stunned.

"Yes," she answered, firmly. "I want one of each. Don't worry, my bag is bigger than it looks."

She paid in cash, leaving him a bit shell shocked. It was probably the biggest sale the bookshop had had for some time, especially as Muggle literature was marked up beyond its real world value. Hermione was extremely grateful for her magically enhanced satchel as she walked to meet her housemates in the Three Broomsticks for an afternoon drink, filled with that happiest of glows that only comes from spending a lot of money on something you truly love.

It was extraordinary to realise, though, how many books she had read that _hadn't even been written yet_. Extraordinary. She was mediating on this topic when the most potent source of confusion in her life appeared across the street. He also appeared to be heading for the Three Broomsticks, but he hadn't been standing there a moment before which meant that he had come out of the rather dank and empty looking alley behind him. How interesting. She rather suspected he had been somewhere entirely other than Hogsmeade, but short of asking him she wasn't going to find out.

Not to mention that she was entirely sure she didn't want to know. Knowing what he was up to created an ethical dilemma: to tell, and risk the very very slight possibility that every theorist on time travel was wrong and that she could change the future as she had known it, or to not tell and risk allowing harm to others by her silence.

She was doing the latter enough as it was already.

"Anything interesting down there?" she asked, injecting a teasing note into her voice that came more easily that it ought to have - she couldn't avoid him and with the weather coming in the street was almost deserted.

"Nothing I would recommend. I was lost in thought and took a wrong turn. How are you enjoying your first Hogsmeade weekend?" It was incredible how convincing his inquiry sounded, even to her.

"It's lovely. Very quaint. I've been in the bookshop."

"Of course," he smiled and it was that oddly genuine smile that actually reached his eyes, the one that had taken her by such surprise the day before. "Are you going to the Three Broomsticks? It's about to thunder so I suspect the entire school will be in there."

"I suppose they will. Is there nowhere else? I don't fancy anywhere too crowded, but I promised I'd meet Ancha and the others there five minutes ago." She wrinkled her nose and looked up at the sky, wishing she could just go back to her room. Her stomach rumbled quietly and she realised that she was absolutely starving; she had missed lunch. Perhaps the pub wasn't such a dreadful idea after all.

At that moment, by sheer luck, Ancha and Claire came out of the Three Broomsticks and spotted her. Hermione felt relieved at the interruption. Chatting so easily with him still felt like a betrayal and a test.

"Oh there you are Hermione! We were just going to come and get you, thought you must have got lost. It's completely packed in there but we managed to persuade them to let us have the upstairs room so everyone's there, but I see now why you're late. Hello, Tom," Ancha added, a bit shyly. "You're welcome to join us if you'd like."

He looked a bit taken aback. Hermione didn't quite know what to say - if she wasn't entirely mistaken there had been a questioning hint there and if Tom came with them he would only be fuelling a rumour she did not want to start.

"That is very kind of you Ancha," he said with a very false smile that nonetheless turned the pretty Ravenclaw's cheeks pink, "but I've actually got to meet the Slytherins in the Hogs Head. Avery thought it would be quieter, although it is a bit grim. I'd better go." The rain had started, just a few warning drops but from the colour of the sky any idiot could see that it was about to turn into a downpour. He paused as though he was going to say something else but finally finished with, "See you later, Dearborn."

She wasn't sure if it was a salutation or a threat, or why she felt disappointed at his absence. Surely she hadn't actually wanted him to come?

However, getting the upstairs room in the pub proved to have been an inspired idea and the whole of the Ravenclaw Seventh Year seemed to be gathered there, nearly twenty of them, sheltering from the torrential rain that had really hit its stride between her entry to the pub and getting upstairs.

"Hermione! _There _you are, you were gone ages. Come and get a drink," Sophia said, getting up from her seat next to Marcus who also rose to greet her.

"Sorry, I was in the bookshop... I'll get some drinks, don't get up. What are you having?"

"A Newtgin & Tonic, thanks Hermione."

"No, that's all right. I'll come and help carry them." Marcus, with his warm brown eyes and slightly freckled nose was a world away from the boy in the street and different again from the redhead she had left in the future and she wondered whether she would ever forget enough about Ron to let him or anyone else close to her. He was sweet and clever and attractive and yet... She could never truly confide in someone, so surely it would be impossible. Perhaps she was destined to be alone with her books forever. A comforting thought.

When they had sat back down, Hermione happier with her bowl of pumpkin soup than she thought she had ever been with food. It soon warmed her stomach and went some way towards throwing off the sense of emptiness she had been feeling.

"Where were you at lunch?" Marcus asked.

"Oh I went for a fly and lost track of time," she answered. She didn't want to confess to the potential detention if she could possibly help it, it was a bit embarrassing, but this was Hogwarts and they would know soon enough. "I actually left the grounds so I got in a bit of trouble for it."

"I didn't know you liked flying. Perhaps you would like to go together one day?" he asked, pretending to be casual before quickly adding, "What kind of trouble?"

"Detention. I don't normally like flying actually but I was just feeling a bit homesick this morning."

He gave her a sympathetic look, but mercifully dropped the subject as someone called for his attention. Other Seventh Years were joining them now and the room was filling up - but she couldn't see any Slytherin students among the crowd. She finished her soup, happy for the chance to just eat and enjoy it.

"Why do Slytherin keep to themselves so much?" she asked innocently when he turned back towards her.

"It's just how they are I suppose. They can be a bit nasty so it's not really a great loss. I think Riddle keeps them under control though. They're mainly very keen on blood purity."

"Speaking of Riddle, Hermione, what were you two talking about outside?" Claire interrupted.

"Oh we were talking about the bookshop, nothing exciting," Hermione replied, turning to face her.

"You're lucky, Hermione. Thalia Newbold said she saw you working with him in the library the other day. Tom's so quiet you know and he never works with anyone, which is a shame because he's so clever." Sophia this time, pushing her dark blonde hair back casually, but she was frowning as though she didn't exactly mean what she was saying.

"But so handsome and clever and mysterious... Although he is a bit scary really," Ancha added.

"Scary?" Hermione asked, interested.

"Intimidatingly perfect, is what she means," Sophia explained laughing and Ancha scowled at her. Hermione still thought Sophia was likely to stab someone in the back to beat them in class, but she had mellowed a bit. Her sharp grey eyes assessed Hermione. "He isn't usually very chatty. He seems to like you, though."

Hermione didn't think _liking_ her was exactly the way to describe it. She still wasn't sure why he was showing her interest but she had a feeling it was because she was close to Dumbledore. How would he react if he knew the truth? That she was the Muggleborn girl who would help defeat him in fifty years time?

That she was Muggleborn at all...

"Oh that was just because I sat in his favourite part of the Library. Oughtn't we be getting back?"

"We've got half an hour or so. Is there anywhere else you wanted to go?" Ancha asked.

"I'd quite like to get some chocolate..." she didn't really, but she did want to end this conversation.

"Oh me too! Let's go to Honeydukes, Hermione," Claire said, smiling. She was blonde and blue eyed, a very pretty Half-Blood. She seemed sweet enough, if a bit dull next to Sophia Rosier.

"Do you mind if I come too?" Marcus asked and Hermione sighed internally. It looked like she was going to have to face up to the possibility of romance in the past sooner rather than later. Ron... Ron was very far away but Hermione wondered if she wasn't technically still in a relationship with him? She loved him and she wasn't sure if she was ready to accept that she might not see him soon. It had only been two months.

But his face was already beginning to fade in her waking thoughts of him. And she didn't want to be alone forever. It was an impossible situation. She would hurt this boy, she could tell already. She would never be able to share enough of herself with him, her sad inner self, her secrets, her nightmares, her grief. He would never know that she had fought in a war and won, but that winning had come at a terrible cost. But being so alone was awful too and unbidden Riddle's dark eyes flashed into her mind. She felt sick.

"Of course not. Anyone else? It's ghastly out there, so we'll have to brave the weather," Claire said and a few other people rose.

Or cast a simple charm, Hermione thought, but didn't say anything. There was no need to be unkind, and charm or not the wind looked fierce. Perhaps it would distract her a bit. She had never loved the Scottish storms but as they stepped out she could feel the wind whipping up a thrill in her blood and she wondered how much she was changing, and where the swotty bookworm had gone, because what she really wanted wasn't a sweet boy like Marcus to keep her company or to bury herself in a book or to go for a fly.

What she really wanted was a fight.

.

.

Her lesson with Professor Dumbledore after dinner was the most interesting she had had thus far. He had been teaching her more sophisticated casting techniques, practicing wandless magic, and discussing magical theory.

"Hermione, forgive me for addressing such a personal matter but it seems to me that you still have not conquered your wand. I have written to Ollivander on the subject and we believe that you will require a feat of extraordinary magic to do so. He also mentioned that it was possible that the way in which you conquer your wand will affect your relationship with it forever."

"It is working perfect well, although it _is _a little less powerful than my old one," she protested. "I thought it was just because I was you know, a bit sad. Preoccupied." Even as she said it, she knew he was right. She was treating her new wand as though it were a stranger's. Dragon heartstring and walnut, surprisingly flexible. Eleven and three quarter inches.

Those wise blue eyes looked at her as though they were reading into her soul.

"Hermione why are you afraid to bond with this new wand? It is perhaps a symbol of the life you have given up but are not ready to let go? Or is it that you have read enough of wand lore to fear this wand?"

She nodded, suddenly close to tears. When she bonded with this... it would mean that she was never going back, that this was real and not a dream. That she had moved on. That... that and it had the same components as Bellatrix's wand. If she bonded with it, what did that say? Would she be one step closer to that dark woman full of hate that had taken to staring back at her from her dreams? It was a combination she knew had been in the hands of many evil wrongdoers, many brilliant but terrible wizards. How could she learn to love such a wand?

"I trust you, child. You will subjugate your wand and you will not allow it to control you. Mr Ollivander did mention that this particular wand had an interesting history behind its making. He did not share this with me, and indeed I do believe he thinks that of almost all his wands, but if you would like to learn a little more I am sure he would be pleased to receive a letter. It might put your mind at rest. Now, onto the matter at hand! Hermione today I am going to begin to teach you a spell that few others throughout history have managed to fulfil. You, like myself, have a natural propensity for the element of fire I believe?"

She wondered how he knew that. "Well yes I suppose so. In my first year I created my own type of fire..."

"Show me."

Hermione waved her wand at the glass of water on his desk and silently set the bluebell flames dancing on top of it. "They're waterproof and will only heat upwards so they're really useful for Potions. I used to use them to keep my hands warm at break." She smiled reminiscently.

"That is extremely impressive magic for a First Year, Hermione."

"Thank you." She glowed. No one had ever commented on the flames, except Ron, and it was nice that they had finally been noted. She had been _so _proud of them.

"Today we are going to begin an attempt to create Gubraithian Fire. However, the presence of such an item in Hogwarts would only lead to odd questions so I think we will return to Devon. I don't think we will be successful in such a short time, of course, but... I foresee a certain amount of damage caused in our practice and it is probably better not to burn down the castle. I have sought permission from the Headmaster for your absence this time." He twinkled at her. "In addition, if you would like and have completed your homework, you may stay there overnight and return tomorrow evening."

"I would love that - I - wait, Gubraithian Fire? That's incredibly difficult, only about five people in recorded history have been able to create it!" She would never be able to do so although with such a teacher she supposed she stood more of a chance. Who knew what miracles Albus Dumbledore could work? And she had still never found a spell she couldn't do.

"And in time, I trust, you will be one of them." He waved a hand at the fireplace, which burst into flames. "Run and get your things, child. We should be off soon. I will call Jingo to help you."

She appreciated the drama of the moment, and hurried off to the tower to collect her sleepwear and books.

.

.

It was a lovely relief to be back in Wisteria House, a true sanctuary from the world, but she was given little chance of enjoying the peace as they left the house immediately and walked some way out into the large garden. She wondered who maintained it whilst he was at Hogwarts, but had little opportunity to consider the matter as he stopped by the small lake.

"I confess I am a little concerned about the steps we will take to create this. It is something very rarely taught for the methods are a closely guarded secret. To do it alone would take you, as it took me, some years to discover. However, I will guide you. First, however, you must learn absolute control over the element of fire. I expect a mastery of even the most potent flame."

As he made her practice the entire list of generic fire spells, Dumbledore told Hermione about the history of the eternal flame. Invented by the Greek witch Hestia, it could only be lit as a sign of hope in dark times - and required a great sacrifice from the caster's heart. To create Gubraithian Fire, the caster had to be gifting something with the flame. It was the opposite of Fiendfyre, designed to consume heedless in its terrible destruction. Gubraithian Fire was intended to bring light to the darkest places, to be a source to share the gifts of warmth and light. It consumed nothing and gave itself over and over.

He did not let her attempt it that evening, and as she fell into bed, exhausted, she wondered if, when he had sent it to the giants it represented his hopes for a better world after Voldemort. What could she possibly offer on that scale to keep a fire burning forever?

She fell asleep and dreamt of fire and sacrifice. Of burning alive and of the dark coldness that followed.

* * *

><p>A note on wands:<p>

"As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental."

"Highly intelligent witches and wizards ought to be offered a walnut wand for trial first, because in nine cases out of ten, the two will find in each other their ideal mate. Walnut wands are often found in the hands of magical innovators and inventors; this is a handsome wood possessed of unusual versatility and adaptability. A note of caution, however: while some woods are difficult to dominate, and may resist the performance of spells that are foreign to their natures, **the walnut wand will, once subjugated, perform any task its owner desires, provided that the user is of sufficient brilliance**. This makes for a truly lethal weapon in the hands of a witch or wizard of no conscience, for the wand and the wizard may feed from each other in a particularly unhealthy manner."

- Pottermore

How was that? I'm not sure how well the Tom chapter worked, as it didn't get much of a reception so I'm sticking to Hermione for now. I would love some feedback so please - REVIEW! It will keep me writing and each and every one (even if you want to disagree or criticise - bring it) means so much.

Thank you for taking the time to read my little story,

A

x


	9. Noticed

**I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.**

- Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_

* * *

><p>The Defence class on Monday afternoon was unusual in that Professor Merrythought had gathered all of the seventh year together in a sizeable (and largely unused) hall that Hermione had never before had reason to enter. She'd known from <em>Hogwarts, A History<em> and from the Map that it was there but as far as she knew it was, like many rooms in the enormous castle, left empty. There were no chairs or desks in the room, and its only furnishings were some ancient-looking tapestries adorning the walls and an colossal fireplace, which sadly did not contain a roaring fire. October had arrived, bringing with it the damp chill of Autumn, and Hermione wished there was a fire to brighten and warm the room.

"Today we will begin the annual Inter-House Duelling Championship for the Seventh Year," the Professor began, without raising her voice. She didn't need to, however: every student was focused with an unusual amount of attention on the Professor's words. Hermione glanced around and saw no surprise on the others' faces. This was not a tradition that had continued into her time, but it seemed that everyone else was expecting it.

"To maintain the safety of students, the Headmaster has requested that everyone read carefully and agree to the rules. You will find a copy of these in your left hand. Please take a few moments to absorb them. Anyone in defiance of these rules will be disqualified."

Hermione hadn't noticed the parchment appear in her hand and took a moment to appreciate such subtle spell-work before reading. The rules were hardly comprehensive:

_All spells used must be legal. _

_All battles must be umpired and must not continue outside the designated duelling arena._

_Any Unforgiveable spells will result in immediate expulsion and will be reported to the Ministry. _

_Any permanent damage intentionally caused to a combatant will result in immediate expulsion and will be reported to the Ministry. _

_All dark Curses are banned from the competition. _

_All duels must be fought in compliance with the International Duelling Regulations and the Hogwarts School Rules. _

That was all. Hermione could think of almost a hundred very damaging spells that would still comply with this list. It was ridiculous - and potentially extremely dangerous.

"When was the last time someone died doing this?" she asked Ancha quietly.

"Ages ago - the teachers step in if they need to, but someone gets seriously hurt pretty much every year..."

Hermione supposed that there was still quite a lot of the health-and-safety-conscious Muggle inside her because this competition seemed almost as absurdly and gratuitously dangerous as the Triwizard Tournament.

But then she remembered Umbridge's words: _As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions... Who do you think is waiting out there?_

Perhaps the competition was a good idea after all, even if the people that would one day be _waiting out there_ were currently in this very room. The chill in the room suddenly had nothing on the chill in her bones.

"If you do not wish to take part in the competition you may leave now and I will assign some theory work instead. However, before you go know this. The most terrifying threat of modern times may now be languishing in a prison but you are _all_ wizards and witches. Every day of your lives you will encounter people with the means to harm you and all those you hold dear," Professor Merrythought said gravely."You may one day meet someone who will wish to act on this. In five years time or in fifty perhaps another witch - or wizard - will decide to take a course of violent action. Perhaps some madman will break into your home. Perhaps it will come from someone you know and love or perhaps a stranger on the street. But one day - I promise - one day you will be grateful for the hard lessons we have learnt in these classes. When that attack comes - and it always does - you will have a choice to defend yourself. That choice can be made today. Now, does anyone wish to leave?"

No one left the room. The Professor continued.

"Each house will have a champion who will go through to fight against the champions from the other three houses. The first round will be extensive: you will fight every other member of your house and you will be assigned points. Then the four students with the highest points will fight again and a champion will be chosen. The four champions will fight each other and the two best will duel again for the trophy, one hundred house points and everlasting glory." She cracked a smile at the last and there were a few chuckles.

This was going to take _ages_, Hermione thought. The first round alone would take weeks.

"You may not watch the internal House duelling unless it is your house. These will be overseen by your Head of House, the Headmaster, and myself and will take place every evening this week. We will begin tonight with the Gryffindors. Now, the draw."

Four velvet bags in the house colours appeared hovering in front over her and she waved her wand at the red one. Small pieces of parchment floated out and paired up in a long list in the air. The Gryffindors pushed forward and for a moment Hermione almost went with them, before remembering that her name would come from a blue bag in this time.

She scanned the hall curiously as they waited. There were still so many faces she couldn't put a name to but then again there were at least double the amount of students than there had been in her time. Tom Riddle was leaning against the wall at the bag, excitement barely contained in his face.

That face. It would be responsible for so much pain and yet it was so appallingly beautiful. She had pretended not to notice, even to herself, but even she couldn't deny it any more. His beauty was like a slap in the face, a mask for all the evil within. He looked up and caught her eye, sending one of those awful smiles at her before pushing off the wall and walking towards her.

"I hope I get to duel you, Dearborn. I'd like to see what you're made of."

She wasn't sure if she was imagining the innuendo in his voice but as his eyes traveled down her body she knew she wasn't.

"I wouldn't look forward to it too much," she said at last. "You might be surprised." He would probably beat her in a duel even now, before he reached his true power, but she had experience on her side and experience was an even better teacher than Albus Dumbledore. She wondered if Tom Riddle had ever _actually_ fought anyone or if he preferred his murders cold-blooded.

It was impossible to correlate that thought with the way he was looking at her, sending something dancing in her stomach so she pushed it away.

"I don't doubt it," he murmured. "You always surprise me."

She turned back to the front of the classroom, not trusting herself to speak anymore and felt odd, unexpected tears pricking at her eyes.

"I'm going to win this competition," he said, standing beside her. "Will you cheer for me from the sidelines?"

What was he doing? What did he _want?_

"You can sit on the side and cheer for me," she snapped and he laughed. She saw a few heads turn in their direction, but everyone else was talking too and the Gryffindors were making an awful lot of noise.

"I've never heard you laugh before. You must be feeling very confident."

He didn't reply, and when she glanced up at him he was frowning down at her.

.

.

The duelling contest was all anyone could talk about for the next few days. Apparently three Gryffindors had spend the night in the hospital wing, and two Hufflepuffs the next. Hermione wasn't particularly looking forward to that evening, when she would duel at least two of her housemates. The duels weren't expected to last very long at this stage and if there was an obvious imbalance of talent the teachers stopped them and assigned a winner.

Ancha had told her that the final last year had gone on for nearly an hour, as though it were very impressive. In Hermione's opinion that wasn't very practical: if you were going to fight someone you beat them as quickly as possible in case one of their friends (or fellow Death Eaters) was coming along.

Still, as she ate her lunch she reflected that she had something to be grateful to Riddle for. From the gossip and chat around the table and common room it sounded like her training as Harry's best friend had set her up to be streets ahead of the others.

But still... her old insecurities crept up and she felt a bit nervous even in the knowledge that she was over-qualified several times over for this stupid competition.

And - really - what good could come of doing well? Of being House Champion or even winning? All that would do would be attract notice, something she was supposed to be avoiding. Not that she seemed to be doing a good job of it, she reflected, catching Tom's eye.

He was looking at her with that hint of bemusement. She looked away first, and then wished she hadn't.

.

.

Insecurity warred with her competitive spirit and in turn with her practical nature as she sat though her afternoon lessons and by supper she still hadn't decided whether to push herself or not.

"Nervous?" Marcus asked, dropping into the seat next to her. He was accompanied by Hector Keate and Gordon McDonald, two of the other boys in their year.

"A bit," she admitted. She was more nervous of revealing herself than anything else, she realised. Why would a sheltered girl from the middle of nowhere, Wales, know all she knew about duelling?

And yet the thought of losing... of _his_ smirk if she lost. She glanced up at Professor Dumbledore and came to a decision. She would ask his advice on the matter and if he thought it didn't matter if she pushed herself then she would, and if he advised her to do well, but not too well she would try and conduct herself with grace and at least choose someone good to lose to.

And maybe she was just underestimating her fellow students, because it was perfectly possible someone would just beat her after all.

She caught the Transfiguration teacher's gaze and nodded to the doors and stood to leave. She didn't have long before she was due up in the hall, less than an hour. They took different routes to his office and when she arrived he was already there.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt your supper Albus but I've been fretting all afternoon about this stupid competition," she began and he held up a hand.

"No matter, Hermione. I am always glad to offer you advice. Please sit."

"Thank you. I'm just so worried because I want to do well in this contest but I don't think it exactly fits my persona if people see what I can really do. I know that sounds arrogant, but I'm just more experienced! None of them have probably ever seriously fought anyone before." She was losing her grammar, she realised, and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I suppose what I'm asking is, do you think it would be a bad idea to fight properly or do you think I should try not to be noticed too much?"

To her surprise, he chuckled.

"My dear girl, I don't think you understand. People will always notice you, but their memories are not very long. You must stop holding back or you will live a very unhappy life. Just let go, and do your best. You cannot hide forever, Hermione and if you are to stay here you must learn to really live here. If there are any inconvenient questions you can say will all honesty I have been training you in and leave it at that. I don't think you've come all this way just to be another ordinary witch."

She nodded, those silly tears pricking again. She didn't want to be ordinary, but she didn't want to let anyone in either and yet... she was so achingly lonely.

"How can I let anyone in when I am pretending to be someone I'm not? When I can never tell anyone my secrets? Not even you?"

"The burden you carry will never grow lighter, Hermione. It is only with love and friendship that these burdens become easier to bear. I do admire how well you have adapted to being here, and how well you play your part. But perhaps you should stop worrying so much about what Hermione Dearborn should or should not do and remember that not everyone is as clever and curious as you are. There are people trying to be your friends, I suggest that you let them. Now good luck this evening. I expect very great things from you. And remember - never lose sight of your surroundings and sometimes the best way is the simplest."

.

.

The hall looked very different when Hermione entered it, a few minutes late. There were raised benches around the edge and bright lights hovering over the central space, which now had a long platform in place. Suits of armour stood in each corner, and there was a long table in front of the (now lit) fireplace where the Professors sat with, she was relieved to note, Madam Mahoney, the nurse.

Hermione felt a thrill of excitement and for the first time thought that it might actually be rather fun. There was a large board behind them with a list of what she assumed were their names although it was too far for her to read.

She slipped onto the bench next to Claire and whispered, "What did I miss?"

"Nothing yet, she's just about to do the draw to see who's up first. Where were you?"

"Went to the loo. Bit nervous. How are you feeling?"

But their conversation was ended by Professor Merrythought standing up. The blue bag floated towards her and Hermione saw that the others were still floating, in the corner, but encased in a shield of purplish light. Presumably to prevent any tampering of the draw, not that it mattered at this stage because they'd have to fight everyone anyway.

The names rose into the air and the Professor called out, "We will begin with Sophia Selwyn and Gordon McDonald. Everyone else remain in your seats."

Hermione watched the other duels with great interest, assessing the general level. There were some impressive moments (and she was quite pleased that both Sophia and Ancha won their first duels) until it was her turn.

At last it was her turn, and she was up against a boy she didn't know very well, a quiet brown haired boy who she thought might be the house Seeker. His name was Francis Romley.

"On three," the Professor reminded them and they bowed, before walking to opposite ends of the platform. "One... two..._ three."_

He dodged her first stunner, so she sent a tripping jinx after it before throwing up a shield. Duelling wasn't like a battle really, more a dancing exchange of magic.

It was over quite quickly though, he was held back by a lack of prowess in non-verbal casting and she sat down, pleased.

"Well done! That was really fast!" Claire commented, standing as her name was called.

Two duels later brought the first serious injury: a slicing hex put paid (temporarily) to an ear and Madam Mahoney rather crossly bustled over. As it wasn't dark magic the damage would be easily undone, but the unfortunate boy was taken to the Hospital Wing for the evening nonetheless.

With Madam Mahoney off the premises, Hermione wondered what would happen with the next injury.

She didn't expect to cause it: her flock of attacking birds had distracted her opponent, Hector Keate, enough that the unusually strong _Diffindo_ she sent afterwards - intended for his robes as further distraction - cut through his leg quite badly.

He too was hurried off to the Hospital Wing after Professor Merrythought had healed it sufficiently for the bleeding to lessen. Another flick of her wand cleaned the blood.

.

.

At last, Professor Merrythought called an end to proceedings for the night. After Hector's injury the fights had become nastier and another two people had been sufficiently injured to have been sent to the Hospital Wing. They had managed to get through half the duels, though, and Hermione, Sophia and Marcus were the only people who had won all of theirs. By some luck of the draw they hadn't faced each other yet.

Sophia was very good - sharp and quick and imaginative and perfectly willing to throw some pretty mean hexes. Marcus was probably better technically, he was fast and had a wide variety of spells but Hermione wasn't sure if he really enjoyed it enough.

She had though. She had recovered pretty quickly from her duel with Hector and, deciding to avoid anything bloody, had dispatched her opponents with a variety of alternatives. It had been quite easy really, after all those Death Eaters.

.

.

As soon as they were back in Ravenclaw Tower, Hermione ran up to her room and found her biggest bar of Honeydukes chocolate. She felt terrible about poor Hector Keate, who seemed to be a very nice boy. The whole year, tired and maybe a bit shocked, had been quiet as they walked back to the Tower but Hermione had caught a few odd looks and even Claire had been cooler towards her. She wrote a note apologising to Hector and wishing him to get well soon and slipped back out of the tower as quietly as possible.

It was past curfew and approaching Midnight, and she knew if she were caught even Dumbledore wouldn't be able to avoid a detention for her so she cast the strongest Disillusionment Charm she could and, wishing she had the Map and the Cloak, crept off to the Hospital Wing.

She made it to the Hospital Wing and paused outside, listening carefully. To her surprise there were voices inside and she recognised the Headmaster's first as he was speaking.

"Thank you for bringing him here, Tom. It was very good of you."

"Just doing my duty Sir."

"I thought the bullying in Slytherin seemed a bit better this year?"

"It has, but he is a Muggleborn you know. I've tried but..."

"Not much to be done about that issue is there, eh? Off to bed with you, and take ten points for Slytherin."

"Thank you Sir."

_Ten points_? He'd probably sent the poor boy there himself, she thought in a rage, as she stepped back into the alcove under the stairs. Riddle strode past, taking the stairs two at a time and she held her breath. He looked surprisingly angry for someone who'd just been rewarded for probable wrong-doing and she wondered why. Moments later he was gone and she sighed in relief, but stayed hidden as Dippet bid goodnight to Madam Mahoney and left.

She waited for twenty minutes after the sounds of tidying and fussing around the patients' beds faded and then slipped in quietly. Hector was sleeping so she left the chocolate by his bed and returned to the Tower.

.

.

By the next morning everyone seemed to have recovered from watching their friends get sent to the Hospital Wing - after all hurts here were easily fixed - and when Hermione sat down at breakfast she was relieved to be welcomed with smiles from Ancha and Claire.

"What did you think of the contest?" Ancha asked as she passed Hermione the platter of croissants.

"It was surprisingly bloodthirsty but it was quite fun. Everyone did really well!"

"_You _did really well. I wouldn't have guessed, no offence." Sophia sat down opposite, smirking. "Looks like I've got competition."

Hermione laughed. "Yes, well I'm not looking forward to taking you on I have to say."

She glanced over to the Slytherin table and found Tom Riddle looking at her. Again.

"I think he does like you, you know," Claire said, following her gaze. "I don't know why you think he doesn't. Everyone noticed when he came to talk to you in Defence yesterday."

"Yes, what did he say Hermione?" Ancha queried, dimpling slightly.

"Oh just that he hoped he got to duel me. Not exactly romantic. He's just fed up that I'm beating him in Arithmancy. I don't know why, he's still the best at everything else."

Sophia didn't look convinced.

"You know who else likes you? Marcus. If you're interested in Tom you should probably make that clear..." she murmured, too quietly for the others to hear.

"I am _not _interested in Riddle. It's just academic competitiveness."

Mercifully, Marcus sat down with, Hermione was very pleased to see, a fully recovered Hector Keate. She didn't know what to say to him, but it was unecessary.

"Thanks for the chocolate, Dearborn. I can't believe I got sent to the Hospital Wing by a girl..."

Everyone laughed, except Sophia.

"You haven't faced me yet Keate. I bet I can send you right back."

"You're on," he replied, and leant over to shake her hand. "The loser has to buy lunch in Hogsmeade."

They were _flirting_, Hermione realised with amusement.

Sophia rolled her eyes and replied, "You wish. I'm a taken woman, you know that."

"Everyone knows that," Marcus joked. "Give the boy a chance, Sophia. You can't honestly prefer that prat..."

"Abraxas is not a prat and I love him very much. Go and try to charm some other poor girl Hector. I heard Violet Darslworth is single..."

They all laughed, although Hermione didn't get the joke. Claire looked upset behind her laughter but Hermione didn't dwell on that. _Abraxas_. The name rang a bell but she wasn't sure why.

"I didn't know you had a boyfriend, Sophia, so apparently not everyone knows," she said and smiled at Marcus.

"She's been going steady with Abraxas Malfoy for two years," Ancha chimed in, sounding proud.

Abraxas _Malfoy._ Oh my god. No wonder her grey eyes looked familiar - could she be Draco's grandmother?

"I don't think I've met him...?" she said, playing her part.

"He left last year, but you'll meet him at the Quidditch this weekend. Are you going to be able to play Hector?" Sophia asked.

"Yeah yeah I'm fine now, Dearborn didn't do that much damage," he replied. "Diffindo, Dearborn? Really? Imagine if it had been my _head?"_

"It's not my fault you stepped into it - I was aiming for your cloak as a distraction," Hermione replied.

But he just smiled at her.

_Friends,_ Hermione thought. Maybe Dumbledore had a point. And at Hogwarts, sending someone to the Hospital Wing was a surefire way of making a friend or a lifelong enemy.

.

.

"I heard that you sent some poor boy to the Hospital Wing last night, Dearborn. Ought I be concerned?" Riddle murmured, dropping his books onto the desk next to hers.

"Oh get lost Riddle," she muttered back, not in the mood for his teasing. _He i__s a Muggleborn, you know. I've tried but... _Lying snake. _  
><em>

"Clearly I should be," he replied and then he _grinned at her_. She hated him so much in that moment as her stupid traitorous heart gave a little leap.

"Looking forward to obliterating your House tonight I see. You're unusually... chirpy," Hermione snapped.

"Very much. They could all do with a good lesson... However, I think I'll save my best spells for when I meet you."

She wasn't sure if it was a promise, a joke, or a threat.

"Likewise. I think I'll let you get nice and complacent before I thrash you." Gods, she was turning into Harry.

"Not very sneaky to tell me your plans, is it?" Riddle smirked.

"Not very Slytherin to tell me yours, is it?" she mocked.

His smile rose up again and she fought to control her blush, but he didn't reply.

If she wasn't completely mistaken he had started flirting with her. It was extremely confusing. She was absolutely sure he wasn't capable of genuine romantic interest in her, which probably meant that he wanted something and had attempted to get it and was trying another way.

But then, that stupid girlish voice in her head, the one that had liked Lockhart and before that, though she'd never confess to Ron, Harry, suggested that maybe - just maybe - he _was _interested. After all, why would he not be? She was new and clever and much prettier than she had been... and he didn't know she was Muggleborn.

Or she'd slipped up and given something away, given him cause to be suspicious. However, if that was the case surely he'd have her on the wrong end of his wand, trying to torture the information out of her rather than smiling at her, showing off those stupid perfect teeth that would have her parents in raptures.

She paid an unusually small amount of attention to the Ancient Runes class, reliving every moment that she could remember to see if she had made any mistakes. She couldn't think of anything - in fact, in retrospect she thought she had dealt with the situation with remarkable composure. If Harry had been here - or worse, Ron - in her stead she didn't think either of them would have lasted a week without trying to curse or kill Riddle.

And instead she had, what, befriended him? Had some chummy library sessions and somehow ended up sitting next to him more often than not in class?

How admirable.

"Dearborn, please explain the various effects a mistranslation of Odin's spell might have caused," Professor Thorsson said, interrupting her meandering mind.

.

.

If nothing else, the contest saved Hermione from a reasonable amount of boredom. It gave her a new reason to pay attention in lessons, to head off to the Library in her free moments, and for that she was grateful. Planning combinations of spells, tricks, distractions, and practicing moves alone in her room took her mind off all her numerous and assorted problems.

She really wanted to win. She didn't know why, maybe because it was the only chance she'd ever have to outdo Voldemort in combat, or maybe just because she really was an insufferable know-it-all but she _really_ wanted to. Maybe it was just because now that Harry wasn't there she could let herself shine in Defence, never her most natural strength, instead of worrying about how _he_ could improve or what he needed to learn.

Still, there was time enough when she was trying to sleep or eat to wonder about the new information she had gained: Sophia was practically engaged to Abraxas _Malfoy._ And to fret about the Head Boy's bizzare treatment of her. The only times she couldn't avoid speaking to him were in their little Potions Lab and yet she found herself easily responding to him when he did talk to her.

.

.

Her beautiful barn owl, much ignored, dropped a letter onto Hermione's plate and the proceeded to land on the jug of pumpkin juice and eye up her bacon. It was a thick scroll and Hermione recognised Cerdic's writing with pleasure.

"Oh all right, help yourself," she muttered to Pevensie (named for the children of Narnia in a fit of unusual whimsey). "Now go to my room or the owlery, I don't mind - I'm going to be ages writing a reply and you must be tired."

The bird hooted softly at her and took off. Hermione admired his flight for a moment and then settled down to open her letter. It was strange really - although the relationship was false and although Dumbledore had thrust it upon him, Cerdic seemed to have fully accepted her into his life, and at times Hermione wasn't sure if it was just that playing the role tickled his theatrical flair and sense of humour but he wrote to her once a week or so. The fatherly tone of this particular letter was of no exception.

_My dear girl, _

_Very good to hear from you. I'm glad that you're settling in better now - Albus said you're doing very well, so that's all for the good. Not much to report here, but I've sent you the first draft of my Seven Metals experiment as requested. When you're done with it pass it on to your godfather. The castle is getting chillier and very damp, I ought to have the contractors in to have a look at it. And a new family have moved into the village - more Muggles so be careful with your magic. I went for a walk the other day, up on the mountains and got lost. Ended up sleeping in a haybarn, gave the farmer quite a fright in the morning. Funny thing is, I wasn't that far away, just caught up in day dreams I suppose. _

_You mentioned an interest in alchemy in your letter, which is rather exciting. We'll talk more about that in person but for now I'm glad to see the apple hasn't fallen too far from the tree. _

_The only matters of interest I have are that my thrice dammed idiot brother wants to meet you, had a howler from him, apparently it's bad form to keep children secret or something. Anyway nothing to be done, they're coming to visit before Christmas. I've got some business at the school so I'll pick you up. You can go back for Christmas if you like or stay in Wales. If any of your friends want to stay they are very welcome but keep them out of my study._

_The other matter is quite droll really - a few of my old associates have picked up on your age and eligibility and have been getting back in touch for their sons I suppose. If you're husband hunting I've got plenty of choices for you now. Don't expect a bright little thing like you would be interested in any of those twits anyway. Dumbledore is useless at passing on gossip, but even he hinted you might have met a young man. Horace on the other hand is excellent so all I'll say I look forward to meeting your friend - he sounds like a swot, which is a shame. _

_Let me know what you think of the paper - don't go correcting my grammar though. Don't know where you got all that from. _

_Much love, _

_Cerdic_

.

.

What on earth? _Even he hinted you might have met a young man_? For God's sake. She stood up from the table, seething and marched out of the hall ignoring the two pairs of eyes, one brown and one so dark it was impossible to guess the actual colour that followed her from the room.

"Albus, can I have a word?" she asked, putting her heard around his door.

"Hermione, what a pleasant surprise. Come on in."

"I got an interesting letter from Cerdic today, in which he mentioned that you had hinted that I might have a 'young man'." She felt unutterably stupid, now that she was here but... "I was just wondering who exactly that was supposed to be as I haven't had any hint of it."

He twinkled at her.

"I merely suggested that you had captured the imagination of more than one of our Seventh Years..."

"I have done no such thing!"

"Hermione, forgive me if I have caused offence but I fail to see the harm in such a statement. Is this a particularly sensitive topic?"

_Yes because everyone's accusing me of fancying the boy who's going to try and kill me and everyone I love one day and I'm not entirely sure how to handle that situation. _

"No, I'm sorry. I'm overreacting. Just... bit confused with how to deal with the aspect of romance should it occur."

"May I be frank with you, Hermione?"

"Yes, I suppose - of course."

"I don't believe there is any chance of us finding a way to ah, _return_ you. Nothing in my research thus far hints at the possibility. We have fifty years to find the other _thing_ but time will not slow down as it draws us closer, and in doing so it is pulling you farther away from where you still wish to be. Make yourself a life here as best you can. As I said on Tuesday - there are many people who wish to be your friend. And one of those people in particular would benefit from a friend such as yourself. I don't believe he has ever had a true friend before."

"Are you talking about Tom Riddle?" she asked, in disbelief.

"Indeed. Tom has had a troubled time, I fear, and he is a troubled boy... but in his interactions with you I see a spark of hope. Just... if there were anything suspicious or strange, with any of my students, you would bring it to me would you not?"

She nodded, unable to speak.

Dumbledore wanted her to be friends with Riddle.

And Dumbledore wanted to spy on Riddle.

Riddle Riddle Riddle. Was she never to be free of him? Wasn't it enough that he had dominated her and her friends' lives for seven years? Dominated her dreams and thoughts every time she wore that stupid locket for months? And he took up more than his fair share of her thoughts and dreams here too, flickering between Tom and Voldemort in her dreams, laughing as he tortured her for her secrets, whispering dark, sensual words in her ear.

"Of course I would, Professor. Unless it was something I know you don't know about until later in which case I wouldn't be able to mention it now or even hint at it, right?"

That was a huge glaring hint as far as she was concerned, but he just smiled and nodded.

_I don't believe he has ever had a true friend before. _It was heartbreaking and her traitorously compassionate heart responded against the rational mind that said she clearly hadn't/wouldn't made/make (they ought to have invented a tense that expressed a past action that hadn't happened yet, she thought crossly) any difference as he still went on to be a murdering psychopath -

already was.

Already was.

.

* * *

><p>AN: I don't really like to explain my writing too much, but a few people protested that Hermione was being an idiot and justifying Riddle's actions in the last chapter. If you go back and look again I think you'll find that I am not saying that. Hermione has a very compassionate streak - and a very vindictive one - and I don't think being aware that someone has been treated very badly and has had an awful life is the same as justifying it.

That being said, when we want something that we know we should not want we work very hard and very subtly to justify having it to ourselves.

.

Many thanks indeed to the wonderful _tellmesomethingnew_ for her beta work. Any mistakes are my own, probably in blithe dismissal of her suggestions.

She also happened to be my 100th reviewer, for which I have written a Tomione two-shot (half-written) so keep an eye out for that, coming very soon.

Thank you to those who have review so far - I try and reply to everyone but if I've missed you be sure to mention it in another ;) and thank you to all the anonymous reviews, your words go unthanked but not unnoticed.

And let me know what you thought! Reviews are, as always, a treat and keep me writing (I'm up to chapter thirteen). Constructive criticism is always welcomed.

Much love,  
>A<p> 


	10. Napoleon v Hitler

_Besides, Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play - I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend._

_ ―_ Oscar Wilde,_ The Picture of Dorian Gray_

* * *

><p><strong><em>There are some insensitive opinions and wilful misreadings of history here. Views within are not shared by the author.<em>**

* * *

><p>Hermione would never admit it but she had taken Xenophilius Lovegood's criticism of her to heart more than she had ever let on:<p>

_You are, I gather, not unintelligent, but painfully limited. Narrow. Close-minded._ She'd never forgotten those words.

He'd been proven right by her treatment of the Hallows myth - so predictable Dumbledore had _relied_ on it - and ever since she had attempted to keep her mind open, to embrace alternative views, to learn not just to prove that she was intelligent but for the sake of genuine learning.

Naturally she hadn't anticipated that this endeavour would stand her in good stead for her trip to another time, or for arguing with future Dark Lords. It had allowed her to handle being sent back fifty-five years with composure instead of protesting that it was impossible and being unable to cope.

It was, incidentally, the reason she could be sent back at all. So much of magic worked on belief and if she hadn't believed it were possible, it wouldn't have worked. Fortunately for Hermione, this was not a lesson she'd yet learnt and so she was still able to cope.

However, a reason she'd been considered limited was her abilities to compartmentalise and rationalise and it was these that truly stood her in good stead in the past.

It was also the reason she was sitting having a real conversation with Tom Riddle. She was tired and confused and there was no other excuse for her actions, so she wasn't bothering to make one.

Sometimes, it was easier not to think.

They were sat by the cauldron, long after Potions had ended. They ought to have been at lunch, it was nearly over and yet neither of them had moved.

"What do you want to do when you leave Hogwarts?" he'd asked.

"Change the world of course," she'd replied, eventually and he'd laughed, surprised.

"Ambitious."

"Not really. What about you? I'm told you are the most brilliant student to come to Hogwarts this century - oh don't pretend to look bashful, it doesn't suit you - so you could do anything... but you never really discuss current affairs so I can't imagine you having much interest in politics. Anyway, of course you wouldn't want to join the Ministry because you probably see that's it's a farcical institution, corrupt to its bones and full of paper-pushers, not to mention you'd hate being junior anything. I expect you'd be a wonderful academic, but there isn't a University. I can't see you working for anyone, really. So, what then?"

She was curious, to tell the truth, curious about how he'd acted in the thirty years before he rose to power, curious about how he'd built his small power base here and then vanished for so long before returning as someone else, curious as to how early his madness and lust for power had set in.

"I want to teach," he replied simply.

She wasn't surprised at the answer, but she was surprised because she didn't think he was lying.

"Well that's awfully worthy. Don't you think you'd get fed up with how stupid most people are?"

"Yes, but I'd be in a position to find those that weren't..."

"You could team up with Professor Slughorn and have joint parties for your special favourites," she quipped.

He scowled at her, but nodded. "No, but Slughorn's got the right idea, he just isn't clever enough to push it to its natural conclusion. Teachers are in a position of extraordinary power in the Magical World. Every talented wizard - or witch I suppose - will pass through their class at some point, before they have ideas of their own. For seven years they will exert influence over every member of our society. All they need to be is a guide... someone the students respect, someone who pushes them, makes them feel... _special."_

"So you'd be, what, manipulating young students to your own ends?"

"Well of course; I am a Slytherin."

And he was, he was _the_ Slytherin in fact. The last one. She cocked her head.

"And what kind of ideas are you going to be planting in their heads? What is it that you're after? I can't fault the method, it's very clever, but I still don't see the end-game."

"I want to discover the very outer limits of magic and then break through them, of course. I too wish to change the world. What else would I want?"

"Happiness, love, friendship, a fulfilled and complete life, money, academic success - lots of things. Some people would say power, which is what you really mean, but that doesn't really appeal to me, I don't see the point in chasing it."

"That is a blatant lie, Dearborn. Imagine all the things you would change when you decide it's time to start changing the world. Envision a list. Now, think of the first thing on that list, the most pressing, and tell me - how would you go about bringing this change?"

She thought, hard. There were so many things she wanted to change about the Wizarding World she wasn't sure where she would start. Ignoring him, she picked up a pen.

**Hermione Dearborn's List of All the Things She Will Change About the Wizarding World.**

1. The way Muggleborns are exiled until they are 11. Why are their parents not informed earlier? The idea of magic should be introduced earlier, preventing fear and isolation. A liaison should be assigned.

2. The treatment of sentient magical beasts.

3. The bizarrely rigid separation between the Houses. Too many alike people spending too much time together is a clear recipe for disaster. The houses should be randomly assigned and there should be an academic organisation behind the classes. Streamed, not housed.

4. The lack of common sense, logic, and critical thinking skills taught to Wizards and Witches needs immediate reformation.

5. As does the lack of teaching with regards Maths, Literature, and Languages.

6. And Muggle studies, which needs to be both enforced and completely renovated. The current syllabus is shameful.

7. The economy: one bank? Are you serious? This has to stop. There must be trade.

8. Equally, with the amount of people working for the Ministry versus the amount otherwise employed, I predict a forthcoming economic crisis that will leave wizards indebted to the goblins. This doesn't seem like a very good idea. I have met them, they aren't very merciful.

9. Magical theory is entirely untaught, which is frankly ridiculous. I propose that this is an attempt to subdue and control a powerful population. I propose that those studies currently considered radical that test the very boundaries of magic be more carefully considered. In this way the population at large and the government will be more informed when those free thinking imaginative radicals, such as Grindlewald and LV, attempt to come to power.

10. There appears to be no recognisable democracy. Perhaps if there was, the Ministry would be more effective and considerate.

11. The current reliance on nepotism and favouritism will be removed from all laws and new ones will be imposed to prevent such occurences. The rather novel idea of a meritocracy will be introduced.

12. There will be a stronger focus on physical education. Many wizards rely on potions and charms to ensure health and improved physical appearance. In addition, there will be a health check on the foods offered at Hogwarts.

He was sitting impatiently and she stopped.

"Alright," she said eventually. "I agree, I'd need to be in a position of power to bring about change. But power is better exerted behind the scenes, so I see why being a Professor here would be amenable to your aim."

"Let me see your list."

"No! I'm not giving you ideas, you can make your own list." She vanished the parchment and then, to lighten the mood again, she continued "I bet I can guess what it will start with: number one, every wizard and witch will bow down to me, Tom Riddle, the Greatest Sorcerer in the World. Two, all houses except Slytherin will be disbanded. Three, I will be named Head Boy of the whole of Wizarding Britain - fear me..."

She collapsed into laughter, because it was easier to joke with him than to think about what his list really contained. _One: exterminate all Muggleborn filth from the Wizarding World, two: seize absolute power, three: never die..._

"You are a ludicrous creature, Hermione." He had never used her first name before, never, but it tripped off his tongue like the most natural thing in the world. A disturbing, baffling thing that made her stomach flip and sounded like the taste of chocolate. She hated him for it, and she hated herself for sitting there chatting to him as though she didn't know what he was, but he was just so much more interesting than anyone else in the school and really, what did she have left to lose?

And she was so damned curious.

He continued, "If you want the power to change the world, you have to give people a cause they already support to get behind. Look at that Hitler fellow in Germany; he took his little party from nothing to absolute power because people in his country don't like Jews. Ingenious really."

She couldn't laugh any more and stared at him in horror.

"What? Did you just _praise Adolf Hitler's methods?_"

They didn't know yet, she reminded herself. The war wasn't ever over: they didn't know the scale of his crimes against humanity. _He _didn't know.

He shrugged. "It's unpleasant but you can't deny it's been very effective. I'm surprised you know about it."

"Do you think he's going to be successful then? Last I heard he was _losing_."

"Well, whatever he's doing now is irrelevant. I'm only interested in how he gained power. He was legitimately voted in, you know."

"Yes," she replied, ironically. "I do know a little of the history."

So _this_ was why. He hadn't taken Grindlewald as his inspiration, but Hitler - and she supposed in a twisted and awful way it made sense: before the War, Hitler had probably seemed an admirable figure. Even British politicians had been torn over him, she knew. He'd ostensibly raised his country from a terrible depression, and he had gained power - initially - through legal means.

It was brilliant but, god, knowing what she knew, what he had become, it was so cold.

"So what you're saying, let me get this straight, is that you would sacrifice a whole race of people to gain power because the end, I suppose, in your eyes justifies the means?"

"I would do whatever was necessary. If you look back at all of history, the greatest and most admired figures took their place through what you might consider unpleasant means. Take Napoleon, for example. He used the propaganda of the French Revolution to seize power himself. He became Emperor _right after_ the French had decided to get rid of their King. _As the nation was perishing I was born. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood. Such was the odious sight which was the first to strike me.._. He's remembered for his military genius more than his political, but it seems to me that he spent the better part of his career in the military building a power base from which to take over himself. He espoused the popular Republican ideals in order to gain enough following and then seized his moment and overthrew it to establish a military dictatorship, which was _accepted_ _by popular vote_."

His understanding of history was imperfect but the barest bones of the point were possibly correct. She wasn't sure what to say.

"Yes, that's all very well but Napoleon ended up a prisoner!"

"Even the British politicians supported him. People _liked_ him, they wanted him back - you know when they thought he'd escaped again, London actually celebrated. But as I said, I'm only interested in how he gained that power."

She hadn't known that. To tell the truth she knew very little about him - aside from his establishment of the Napoleonic Code, which was something she had admired.

"Napoleon is probably a better idol than Hitler, I'll give you that," she replied. "Hitler, to my eyes, is a complete madman. He may not have started that way but absolute power has corrupted him. And besides, I cannot support the idea of sacrificing a whole race just to put yourself ahead. I don't see how you can admire them both, Napoleon emancipated the Jews, Hitler condemns them."

"I don't particularly care about religion or ideologies aside from their use as a way to gain a power base."

_And yet you would kill them -_ us_ - anyway. _Somehow it was worse that he didn't care himself. His abstracted view of the world, a view without any room for empathy or the value of human life was chilling. His mind was undeniably brilliant, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows, but, ultimately, also something that was broken.*

"A lot of people dislike Muggleborns, would you throw them to the wolves in order to gain power?" She knew he would, but she wondered if he would admit it. She also knew that she was treading very dangerous ground indeed. Something in her wanted to push him to reveal himself, because she was fed up with his facade of perfection and she wanted to see the rawness underneath.

"Hypothetically, it would be a sensible course of action."

"Hypothetically."

They stared at each other and she knew they'd hit a stalemate because neither one of them could continue without exposing too much of themselves. His eyes were so dark they appeared black in any light and in the dingy light of the dungeon the shadows falling over his face hid any expression. He could almost have been carved from ivory and obsidian, but for the pale pink fulness of his beautiful mouth, twisted down at the ends.

"Well, I think that's pretty disgusting," she said at last.

He looked _disappointed._ In her. As though she had failed to live up to something in his eyes. Well that was absolutely fine by her, she didn't need his approval for his vile ideas. He had got her thinking though...

"Why _do_ people dislike Muggleborns so much? I don't really understand. My father never gave two hoots about that sort of thing, so I wasn't brought up to it." She said this with remarkable composure, an off-hand question.

"They are brought up to it, it is the accepted version of the truth. They are told that Muggleborns threaten the very existence of the Wizarding World. They bring radical ideas, they don't understand the traditions... they have always considered been lesser. They have a rigid morality that doesn't fit here - Victorian prudishness if you like. Indeed, they are often unsuccessful magically or can't cope here. Their very existence _does_ threaten the secrecy of our world - and they are amazingly destructive. If they knew about us they'd hate us, fear us, kill us all - or enslave us to do their will. There's so _many_ of them. Salazar Slytherin didn't think they should even be allowed in Hogwarts but _unfortunately_ he was overridden."

This was said with some venom, and as his face twisted she finally caught a glimpse of Voldemort beneath the beautiful surface. He'd manoeuvred from general to personal and there he was, filled with irrational hatred and believing in a creed he didn't know he really believed in. He had started to buy into his own propaganda already.

"But even if you yourself aren't actually a Muggleborn, I don't see what different it makes if your upbringing was a Muggle one. Why are you not included in this threat?"

"I am the exception that proves the rule," he replied simply, with a slight shrug.

He really believed that, she could see, and she had had enough of this conversation.

"You're a strange mixture of hypocrisies Tom Riddle. You damn Muggles and Muggleborns as lesser, and yet you admire at least two Muggles for their political methods. You say people believe because they are brought up to believe and you say you don't care about ideology but this particular one seems to be something you do believe in." She packed up her books and stood up, but paused by the door before adding, "And I don't think you're someone I'd _ever_ want in a position of power."

She had never taken more pleasure from knowing that one day she would help _destroy_ him and everything he stood for.

.

.

After the argument, if it were that, Hermione decided to avoid him as best she could. She had to stop the pendulum that swung between enjoying his company and remembering who he was, a pendulum that left her confused and filled with self-hatred and feeling terribly alone.

But after the beginnings of camaraderie, she needed an excuse to avoid him, especially since he'd started using that slightly flirtatious manner with her. Whatever he wanted, whatever had caused his unusual interest in her, he wasn't getting it that way or any other but she could no longer pretend to be totally unaffected. The silly, insecure eleven year old in her had _hated_ disappointing him even as her more self-possessed and confident twenty year old self was glad not to be associated with such individualistic drivel and revelled in the knowledge that she would personally ensure his destruction.

She didn't care how awful his life had been - it was never an excuse. However, the scientific aspect of her mind couldn't help turning over the realisation she had had in Transfiguration, and something pricked at her to keep it to hand because there was something important there, something she had read. Something in the way his mind had developed...

The excuse presented itself sooner than she had anticipated and she took it, even though the ramifications of her actions could be crueler than she could imagine.

"Hermione, are you coming to watch the match on Saturday?" Marcus asked her on Friday afternoon, slipping onto the desk next to her in Charms.

"Oh, I hadn't really thought about it. Why?"

"Well," his cheeks turned a little dusky, "I'm one of the Chasers, you know, and well, I'd really like it. If you did come."

She smiled at him, and knowing it was monstrously wrong of her, said, "In the case of course I will come."

It was monstrously wrong because if it became more than going to watch a Quidditch match, and if he did fall for her she would be stealing away his chances for a family. That was so presumptuous to even think... and yet, she didn't belong here - whatever Dumbledore said - and the very thought of growing old with someone before she had even been born made her stomach roil. She pushed the thought away.

And after all, she told herself, they were very young and even if things were different in the Wizarding World it didn't mean he had anything serious in mind. She could enjoy his company; it wasn't wrong to not want to be alone. And Ron - Ron was very far away. She wouldn't think about Ron.

They were learning about Protean Charms, so Hermione let herself switch off. It was hardly something she needed to revise; she'd been unusually brilliant at them as a fifth year, four years ago. The view from the Charms classroom was a pleasant one and as it was one of the most popular NEWT classes they were still divided by house, so there was no Riddle here, just the harmless Hufflepuffs and so she was safe. They had spent most of the week revising Non-Verbal spells, much to Hermione's irritation (she didn't want her particular advantage in the duels lost) but for some reason many students found them very difficult... it was a continual source of bafflement that even apparently clever people found such simple things so hard to master.

Hermione wondered why that was: it was becoming harder and harder for her to actually verbalise very familiar spells - it felt like an intrusion, as though she were a maestro violinist handed a toy guitar. Magic made more _sense_ without the verbal restrictions placed upon it, when it became about will and imagination, like the magic they created before they were handed a wand and told to learn control.

_Words are binds_, she thought, and then scrawled it on her book because it was an important thought and -

"This is impossible," Ancha groaned from the other side of Marcus, interrupting her thoughts. "I wish he'd shut up and let us go for the afternoon. Doesn't he know we've got a match tomorrow?"

Professor Cunningham, however, did not seem to be aware that it was Friday afternoon and even after Hermione had linked her five signs to all read the same (horribly basic to her eyes) and earned twelve points for Ravenclaw, he made her sit and pretend to read the next chapter in the textbook (a textbook she could probably rewrite from memory) while the others tried.

Marcus got it next - Charms was his best class, he had the creativity and imagination for it combined with admirably precise wand work. This gave him the opportunity to talk to Hermione one on one, a opportunity he'd never really made use of before. She had the odd feeling that she intimidated him, because he was much more relaxed around other people.

"How come you're so fast at everything?" he asked, distracting her from the novel she had spelled to resemble the pages of the textbook she practically knew by heart (if Ron had seen she'd never have heard the end of it - _can't believe you're reading in class, Hermione, what _would_ McGonagall say?_ his voice teased in her head and it was hard not to smile or weep). She pushed him out.

"I've just done it before, almost everything. I'm not exceptionally talented or anything, I'm just older and and I learnt most of this stuff ages ago. I only came to Hogwarts this year because Professor Dumbledore thought I ought to do my NEWTs and you know, socialise a bit. My father doesn't really think about that sort of thing..."

"How old are you? I mean, gosh, that was awfully rude, I'm sorry." She could see the light smattering of freckles, his almost girlish eyelashes tangling as he bashfully dropped his eyes.

She laughed at him; he was quite old-fashioned. "I'm twenty actually." Fortunately his manners prevented him expressing his surprise verbally but his eyes flashed back up, widening.

"Your life sounds very interesting. I heard that you had been educated at home." _If only I could tell you how interesting it's really been, what a relief that would be. _

"My life sounds anything but interesting, I lived in Wales in the middle of nowhere with just my father and a house-elf and then I came to Hogwarts."

"No, it's like a fairytale!" he protested.

"Hopefully without the gritty moral ending. Anyway it wasn't, and I'm here now. But I know all about my life so it's very boring for me. I don't know anything about yours though. Where are you from?" she asked, realising she knew very little about him other than that there was a sweetness there and that his eyes were warm and comforting.

"Somerset. We've got a house in London as well but I spent most of the time in Somerset. My family's lived there for centuries."

"Somerset is very beautiful, I hear. Do you have siblings?"

"Yeah, there's four of us, quite unusual these days. I'm the youngest though. My oldest brother Augustus is a curse-breaker and Quintus is... estranged. He's a lawyer though. My sister Maxima is married to Richard Abbott. They're all alright but I'm much younger, bit of an afterthought really."

Brothers working, sister married. _Right._ God forbid she worked while she was married.

She wondered what he meant by 'these days' - the Weasleys had had seven children. That was quite unusual, though, and she tucked it to the back of her mind to contemplate later. And an estranged brother? That was interesting.

As he described his family, his happy childhood and kind parents, the beautiful manor in Somerset, Hermione wondered what would become of his family by her time. She had never heard the name Blishwick, but for an entry on the Black Family Tree and the odd mention in the trees of family histories she had poured through looking for R.A.B.. Perhaps they were just unremarkable, or perhaps she had just never encountered them because their interests lay in different fields.

.

.

Saturday dawned cool and windy, with thick dark clouds overhead. Gryffindor had demolished Hufflepuff in their first match and so were naturally leading in the Quidditch Cup, but they were still behind Slytherin and Ravenclaw in the House Championship. Nonetheless Ravenclaw needed a big win against Slytherin to take the lead in either rankings. Hermione dressed carefully - school robes were expected at the match, but she pulled on her thick, dark blue winter cloak and Ravenclaw scarf as well. She had woken late, after an unusually restful night and had to hurry to make it to breakfast.

The team were sat huddled together, looking nervous, but Marcus looked over as she arrived and smiled at her. Seeing where he was looking Ancha, also a chaser, waved nervously at her, brown curls pulled back in a ponytail.

"What are the Slytherin team like?" she asked Claire, helping herself to some porridge.

"Nasty. Winky Crockett, the Captain, is terrifying. She sitting over there, looks a bit like a troll..."

"Crikey, wouldn't want to bump into her without my wand." The girl looked like Millicent Bulstrode and Marcus Flint combined, and about as charming.

"She's a beater, and then there's their best Chaser, Neil Lament. He's alright, fouls a lot but nothing like as nasty. The one to really watch out for is Canopus Lestrange - he's the other Beater and he's twice as bad as Winky. Alphard Black, over there, he's the Seeker. He's alright actually, pretty nice for a Slytherin. Then there's Hamish Craggy, he's the Keeper - don't know anything about him, he's new. Fifth year maybe. The other Chasers aren't here yet - Penelope Greengrass and Finnbar King."

"I've met Greengrass - wouldn't have picked her out as a Quidditch player." The willowy blonde girl was in most of Hermione's classes, except Arithmancy.

Claire laughed. "No, well she's actually quite good but yeah I know what you mean. She's a snooty cow. I'd watch out for her actually, she's pretty keen on Riddle and there are a few rumours about you two..."

Of course there were. Just what she needed.

"Right. Noted. I don't suppose the fact that the rumours are entirely baseless will matter?"

"No, I don't think they will. He took her to the Yule Dance last year so..."

"Do you think we're going to win?" Better focus on Quidditch, she'd already had quite enough hearing about Riddle for one day.

"Hope so, we've got a really good team this year but the weather's awful and you never know with Slytherin... Gryffindor have got the best team skill-wise but they tend to lose their heads and their Captain, Septimus Weasley, he's not the best tactician."

Ron's grandfather... Hermione tried not to think about it.

"Where's Sophia?"

"Meeting Abraxas I think. He's coming to watch, but they always have tremendous rows when Slytherin play Ravenclaw. He was their best player - Keeper before Craggy. He was extraordinary actually, to be fair. I've never seen a better Keeper. You'll like him, he's great. Marcus teases her but we all like Abraxas."

Hermione eyed the Ravenclaw team: Ancha, Marcus, Francis Romley, and Hector Keate were sitting with three other students not in their year. One of them looked slightly familiar.

"Who's that girl with the short hair?"

"Rolanda Hooch, she's absolutely amazing, already signed up to play for the Harpies when she leaves. She's our third Chaser with Hector and William Bell, he's the brown haired boy next to Hooch, they're the Beaters. And that's the Keeper, Angus Matlock."

.

Just as Hermione was finishing her porridge, there was a slight commotion at the Slytherin table. She looked up and saw a tall, extremely handsome man with shoulder length pale blond hair shaking hands with some of the students. Sophia was standing behind him, but even without that marker Hermione would have guessed exactly who it was. Abraxas Malfoy was more like Lucius than Draco, taller, broader shouldered, without the pointedness of Draco's features. He was laughing, teeth gleaming even at a distance.

She watched openly as Riddle stood and stiffly shook his hand. There seemed to be no love lost there, a flicker of loathing tempered by grudging mutual respect. It was interesting.

For some reason, she'd imagined that all the members of Slytherin House had been in thrall to Riddle but it seemed that that hadn't always been the case.

"Well that was friendly," she commented quietly to Claire.

"Mmm, look don't mention anything - it's not widely known - but Abraxas and his friends bullied Riddle quite badly when he arrived. That changed in our fourth year but Slytherins are what they are. Sophia told me. It was when they found out he wasn't a Mudblood after all. They thought he'd been lying."

Claire's - who wasn't even a Pureblood - casual use of the horrible slur shocked Hermione into silence and she excused herself from breakfast, pretending she had left something in the Tower.

"I'll save you a seat!" Claire was oblivious to her distress - thank Merlin - and Hermione nodded her thanks and hurried out.

_It was when they found out he wasn't a Mudblood. Mudbloodmudbloodmudblood..._

It took some time to compose herself.

.

Abraxas was a bit, well, a bit _dazzling_, although Hermione was loathe to admit it and had been predisposed to dislike him. He was good humoured, charming, and he radiated that patrician confidence that only came with a life where nothing had ever, could imaginably ever, go wrong. He was rich and spoilt and almost uncomfortably secure in everything about him - his looks, his brains, his like-ability. And if that wasn't unfair enough, he was also extremely bright.

They were sitting waiting for the match to begin as the players warmed up, and he was entertaining them with stories of the travels he had been on since he'd left Hogwarts the year before. He was like an eighteenth century aristocrat after a Grand Tour, an educated man of leisure with enough steel underneath for the political career he would one day embark on.

"And then, if you can believe it, the Count's wife came out after him in nothing but her bloomers..." Hermione dutifully joined in the laughter, although she didn't see what was so funny about your friend seducing your host's wife and he flashed them a wicked smile. "Well we had to move on pretty sharpish after that of course, so I thought I'd come home and see the Olds for a few weeks before going to South America."

The olds, she presumed, were his parents.

"Where are you going in South America?" Hermione asked, interested. There were a lot of very important magical sites there, and she hoped that one day she would be able to go too.

"Everywhere! One of my Burke cousins - not Anya's side - is coming with me and we're going to spend two months in the Amazon with a tribe of wizards. It's actually fascinating how differently they treat magic, they have special magic for hunting and all sorts so it should be jolly interesting, and then Patagonia and then we're porkeying up to the north and going down from Venezuela through Colombia, Peru - Macchu Picchu obviously, so funny how the Muggles see it, Bolivia. We've got some land out in Chile so I've got to spend some time there as well. We grow a lot of potions ingredients, very fertile country, and a vineyard."

"Sounds glorious."

She wondered if he would be amused or offended to find that many Muggles took a similar trip in her day.

He glanced up at Sophia and despite their relatively restrained relationship, Hermione caught a glimpse of real feeling in his eyes. She couldn't help liking him, and wondered what would change this man enough that his offspring would be so full of hatred.

At last, it was time for the match and they settled down quietly to watch.

The game was nasty and Winky Crockett seemed to be doing her very best to get through all seven hundred possible fouls singlehandedly, and managed to get away with most of them. Hermione was surprised the teams hadn't come to blows, but Ravenclaw were leading (thanks, in part, to being awarded so many penalty shots).

"This is ridiculous, she can't do that with an inexperienced Keeper!" Abraxas muttered angrily.

"Well I don't think she should do that anyway, it's hardly an honourable tactic," Sophia snapped back.

"It worked perfectly well when I was Keeper, and after all winning is winning."

"Only for a Slytherin, I think it's _shameful_." This was, Hermione felt, a little hypocritical, as Sophia had a streak of moral flexibility a mile wide when it came to beating her compatriots in class but she wasn't going to get involved.

"Oh thank Salazar, Black's seen the snitch."

Alphard Black had entered into a particularly daring dive given the ghastly conditions but didn't seem to be too worried about his own safety, something he probably regretted when Hector's bludger hit his broom and sent him ricocheting off course. The moment was lost and the snitch had vanished again.

"Blast." It was clear that Abraxas liked to vocalise his emotions while watching sport.

"Come ON Ancha," Sophia and Claire screamed in unison as their friend put the Quaffle through the hoops again.

"Claggers is going to _get it_ later if he doesn't pick up," Abraxas hissed.

The Ravenclaw chasers were exceptionally good, playing with far more teamwork and absolutely smashing their Slytherin counterparts. Still, if Black got the snitch - and by all accounts he was much the better seeker - the game was lost.

After a particularly horrific and unpunished example of blurting, Slytherin regained the Quaffle and then the game was suddenly at an end because, against the odds, it appeared that Francis Romley had caught the snitch. Abraxas moaned in desolation as Hermione, Sophia, and Claire stood up to cheer.

"That's the first time we've beaten Slytherin in four years," Claire said, hugging Hermione. Gryffindor had lost so rarely, mainly because of the absurd and pointless but inherent bias towards the Seeker in the game's design, that Hermione couldn't imagine what it felt like to lose continually for four years. Horrid, probably. "I feel sorry for their Keeper though, he's in for a tough night."

"I can't believe I came all this way to watch them lose."

"Oh and I suppose seeing me was just a side effect?"

As they were walking onto the pitch to congratulate the team, leaving Sophia and Abraxas to argue it out, and hopefully make up somewhere very private, Marcus swooped down and jumped off his broom, looking elated.

"Party in the Common Room?" he said to Claire, who gave a mischievous nod and congratulated him, before going to find Ancha.

"What did you think?" he asked Hermione.

"I thought you were excellent, well done."

He took her hand and pulled her towards the team. It felt nice. Not amazing or anything, but nice, so she let him keep it there for a while.

.

.

The party was in full swing (after quite a lot of Butterbeers, and Firewhiskey & Toadas) when someone turned the wireless on to a jazz channel and people started dancing. Rock music fortunately hadn't happened yet, because wizard rock was absolutely dreadful, but it appeared that Muggle jazz was quite acceptable - as long as no one mentioned that it was Muggle - and it was on a Wizarding radio station.

"Dance with me?" the boy with the warm brown eyes asked Hermione and she said yes because it felt nice and it had been so long since she'd felt anyone's arms around her. Marcus kept her in his arms as the songs changed and she relaxed slowly into them. Sometimes it was easier to do what was simple and the alcohol had numbed some of the pain she kept shuttered away.

_I'll be seeing you, _Billie Holliday began to croon out of the wireless, and the mood in the room changed. It was almost unbearable because _she_ wouldn't be and all the familiar places had been made unfamiliar and everyone was gone, and so when Marcus pressed his lips against hers she didn't pull away. It was a fleeting kiss, chaste and proper, and terribly terribly sweet.

"I really like you, Hermione Dearborn," he whispered in her ear.

They were in a corner now, hidden from casual glances by the shadows cast from the bookshelves, and he guided her to sit by him on a sofa, gently stroking her face.

"You look so sad sometimes. I've never seen anyone look as sad as you do. I want to make it go away, make you smile. You've got such a beautiful smile."

She gave him one, because it was working, but she felt deeply conflicted.

"You're very sweet," she said at last.

"I'm not that sweet. It's just easy to be sweet to someone so amazing."

"Well, I bet you say that to all the girls."

"No, just you. Look, I know it's none of my business but I've got to ask before I make a complete fool of myself. Is there anything between you and Riddle? Only... I see how he looks at you and he, well, he's Tom Riddle."

"There is nothing now, and there _never_ will be, anything between me and that boy."

And so he kissed her again, and it was lovely, and then she went to bed and thought about everything she had lost.

.

.

* * *

><p>*a complete rip off of the way Terry Prachett described Mister Teatime's mind in <em>The Hogfather<em>. It was too perfect not to use for Tom but apologies for stealing nonetheless.

The Slytherin Team captain is canonical, as is Neil Lament. And yeah, I did take the time to look it up.

**Do you hate me?! Let me know! Last chapter got a fantastic response so thank you all so much. It means the world to me. I hope this one does even better! **

**Did you like Abraxas? More of him laterlater.**

**Love**

**A**

Anons: Special thanks to gleeislove who always reviews but I can't reply, so thanks for your loyalty and kind words. Also to PaperRose who just gets it, great review, thank you. And to Shay and all the guest reviewers. You're all wonderful.


	11. Interesting

"Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it, and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. Anyway, being brought up as a Satanist tended to take the edge off it. It was something you did on Saturday nights.

And the rest of the time you simply got on with life as best you could, just like everyone else."

― Terry Pratchett, _Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_

* * *

><p>It was one of those strange coincidences that made Hermione wake early and go for a walk, even though dawn had barely broken and even the birds were still quiet. She had been finding it easier to sleep in, but whether from the alcohol or the emotional confusion she awoke to the blue-grey light of the night turning to dawn, with a thrumming headache that said no, you shall not return to slumber and so she got up, dressed and quietly slipped outside. Sunday mornings in Hogwarts were one of the few times the castle remained quiet; breakfast was served later and even the Ravenclaws didn't go to the library until after lunch, so it was still hours before she'd have to see another soul.<p>

The door to the castle was still locked, and so Hermione took the passageway that lead down to the lake instead, one most people didn't bother with because they didn't know about it or didn't know it didn't just lead to the Boathouse. Percival Pratt, whose portrait concealed the entrance, was especially annoyed to be woken at such an hour, although he was usually more accommodating. She apologised and he eventually swung open, and she was free. From the Boathouse it was possible to take a small path across the bottom of the cliff and it was at the end of this path, at the far side of the lake where it lapped at the edges of the forest that Hermione paused to enjoy what seemed to be the sun rising behind the cloud bank, creating a rather dramatic scene.

Quiet voices whispered towards her, brought by the east wind and she shrank back against the cliff-face, disillusioning herself.

With some horror she recognised the Slytherin Keeper, still in his Quidditch gear, pale and bruised and limping, head bowed, walking behind a gang of Slytherin Seventh Years. To her surprise, Riddle was not amongst them, but his henchmen Avery and Lestrange were, and the entire Quidditch Team. It looked like they had been out all night, and if she was not much mistaken they had been deep in the forest.

"...better next time, won't you Crabby?"

"Stupid Half Blood, you'll be lucky to get a second chance. Did you enjoy your night in the forest?"

They were closer now and she could hear them quite clearly. Had they left him alone in the forest as a punishment? That was beyond cruel... They were less that twenty yards away now, right beside the lake.

"You've brought shame and dishonour to our House and our noble Founder. Now, get in the lake."

"Wait, tie his hands and feet first."

"_Incarcerous_."

She watched, frozen in horror for a moment as they pushed the boy, bound entirely in ropes into the lake not thirty feet from where she stood. She couldn't bear it and removed the charm. _Stay calm_, she told herself and began to walk towards them.

"Lovely morning isn't it?" she commented and found herself and the end of eleven wands.

"What are you doing here Dearborn?" Greengrass snarled, and too late Hermione remembered Claire's warning. This one definitely had it in for her.

"Well I was trying to go for a walk, but you've rather spoilt the view. I think that boy is drowning by the way, so I should get him out before the lot of you end up in Azkaban."

Alphard Black turned first, to his credit, and levitated the poor boy onto the shore. Hermione flicked a drying charm at him before he caught hypothermia and stood her ground.

"Get back to the castle, all of you. I'll take him to the Hospital Wing." It was somewhere between her Prefect voice and a voice learned from Harry, confidence in the face of danger, taunting the enemy no matter how dire the situation.

"He's not going to the Hospital Wing, do you think we're stupid?"

"I won't tell on you, I don't care what sort of sick punishments you inflict amongst yourselves. Although my Godfather might..."

"What are you talking about?" Crockett hissed.

"Professor Dumbledore, he's my godfather. So I really wouldn't do that if I were you, Lestrange." Hermione disarmed him casually and twirled his wand in her hand.

"We could just obliviate her?"

"Do you want to try it? Let Tom deal with her." Avery apparently wasn't as stupid as the others and lowered his wand. "If you tell, it will only make things worse for him."

"I can imagine. Now get lost you pathetic losers. And mind you do tell Tom, I don't imagine he'll be very pleased you were caught. There are enough of you to wake the dead." She threw Lestrange back his wand to make it perfectly clear that she wasn't scared of them, and in a way she wasn't really. What could they possibly do that she hadn't already experienced? Even Lestrange couldn't yet be as talented and dangerous as his future daughter-in-law. She had so little left to lose, even her illusions about pain. It wasn't bravery so much as cynicism and experience.

Crockett spat at her but turned to go and the others followed, all but Avery who was watching her assessingly.

"Looks like you were sorted into the wrong House. Make sure you don't say anything or it'll go badly for your boyfriend..."

They'd been unwilling to curse her, and Hermione didn't understand why, but was immensely grateful. She might be a capable duellist these days but not against eleven of them. In the end, after a warming charm and some mild healing, Crabby refused the Hospital Wing and Hermione let him go, aware that the Nurse might recognise the signs of Cruciatus as she herself had, and there was no Potion that could remedy that or the questions that would follow.

It was a horrible start to the day, that drove all thoughts of Marcus's kisses and her dreams of accusatory blue eyes out of her mind and left her with two predominant questions: why hadn't they attacked her, and why was Riddle, who was supposed to be the ringleader in all things hateful, not there?

And then a third less pressing question occurred: how had Avery known about Marcus? Good observational skills? There was no way he could possibly have known what had occurred the night before, so perhaps he was just speculating.

She wasn't sure why she had promised not to tell anyone, although she certainly did intend to keep it to herself; it was deeply out of character. Hermione Granger would have gone straight to Dumbledore. Her coolness in the situation had impressed herself but it was also cause for concern: was she becoming so cold that she could out-slytherin the Slytherins, that she could act like that when someone was in danger? Was she becoming less of a Gryffindor? She hadn't even particularly cared about the threat to Marcus, and although she wished it were her motivation for letting them get away with it she didn't think it was. It was more complicated than that.

The Sorting Hat's words came back to her, _A time traveller I see... and so very clever, but what's this? An ex-Gryffindor? You don't belong there any more I see that, although you are very brave... Perhaps... yes, I think you would do very well in Slytherin. Very cunning and vengeful, I see. And with all those secrets it might be the best place for you, and you're_ so_ ambitious..._

_You don't belong there any more. _

She needed some chocolate. Crabby hadn't even thanked her, just muttered that he was fine and left. He was a big burly Scots boy and she was sure he would be fine, but god help her she hated that house. What kind of sick, fucked up society was contained within the dungeons that tortured someone for playing badly in a Quidditch game? She remembered seeing the caretaker dragging a Second Year girl off to face her detention in the dungeons, Claire's casual use of the word Mudblood the day before, the prefect on the train who'd been so defensive about her blood-status and who sat apart from her year at dinner, and began to see that there was a canker in this society that ran deeper that she had ever imagined.

A canker that she had to ignore, for now.

_One day_, she vowed silently to herself, staring up at the castle, _one day it's going to be a very different world. This one is going to burn up in a fire of hate and then I will use the ashes to help a new order come to pass. I swear it. _

She might not be able to change the past, but she could definitely change the future. Suddenly her conversation with Tom Riddle took on a different light because even she hadn't realised that she had meant every damn word.

.

She was sitting curled up on her sofa with a mug of hot chocolate (a guilty pleasure because for some reason Jingo had answered her call and brought her breakfast and, afterwards, hot chocolate because she said _The young miss is looking pale_) feeling a bit shocked that she'd been so reckless when someone knocked on her door. No one ever knocked on her door, so it caused a moment of consternation. When she opened it, she was surprised to find Marcus. He was bold, she'd give him that.

"I'm so sorry to intrude, but you weren't at breakfast and I wanted to talk to you."

"You're not intruding, come in."

Her room seemed to be exempt from the spells that banned boys from girls rooms, probably because it was used for overnight guests occasionally and she waved him towards the armchair before sitting back down on her sofa.

"You room is... _incredible._ I had no idea you lived up here but Sophia explained you didn't live with them. Wow."

"Nepotism works wonders. I was so unused to people that they allowed me this secret privilege. I don't always sleep very well. Marcus, I don't mind you knowing but I'd rather it didn't get out."

"Of course. How are you feeling?"

"Fine thanks, although I woke up very early and couldn't get back to sleep so a bit tired but otherwise fine." She smiled suddenly. "How's your hangover?"

He blushed a bit, looking bashful. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Last night I was very forward, and I have come to apologise."

If she hadn't learnt to control her face her jaw would have dropped. That wasn't what she had been expecting and she didn't have an appropriate response.

"I want to assure you that I meant every word I said. I'm really keen on you Hermione, and I would like to, you, well, that is to say I would like to see more of you."

"I'd like to see where this goes," her mouth said while her mind was still trying to catch up. And that was that. How did people date here? They were locked up in the castle, and she couldn't see Marcus persuading her to slope off to the Astronomy Tower. And wasn't that what she really wanted from him? Physical comfort? She didn't want to go to Hogsmeade with him and have him carry her books to class and sit next to her at meals, she wanted him to come and kiss her and make her forget.

He gave her a big, boyish smile and she noticed that he had rather adorable dimples and excellent teeth.

"Come and see this," she said, his excitement infectious, and lead him out onto the balcony - more of a balustrade really, that wrapped around the turret.

And this time, with the wind in her hair and dizzy from the height, she kissed him, and he didn't taste of fire whiskey and his arms felt warm around her.

.

.

As tactics to avoid Tom Riddle, Hermione had to admit that confronting the entire Slytherin Quidditch Team and assorted extras hadn't been her wisest move. She sat with her back to the Slytherin table at lunch, suddenly aware that she had always automatically sat where she could keep an eye on him, and hoping it was just an unconscious move because you didn't want to have your enemy at your back, and she could feel his eyes boring into her. He was being less subtle about watching her than usual, because when she glanced around (pretending to be tossing her hair off her face, a trick that wouldn't have fooled a First Year) he dropped his eyes. Normally he didn't bother and was rarely looking _at _her, just in her general direction, or past whomever he was deigning to speak to, or similar tactics. Marcus had held her hand underneath the table until it made eating too awkward, and Sophia's smirk in their direction clearly stated that no one was fooled

"You two look chirpy," she commented.

"Lay off them, Sophia," Claire said, clearly feeling it was too early to tease, and it was, because Hermione couldn't shake a sense of wrongness in what she was doing. Like she was acting in a part she didn't belong in, inhabiting someone else's body.

Are you a Hermione Dearborn or a Hermione Granger? You find some bullies and their victim by the lake. Do you

a) Threaten to tell a teacher. (Answer: You are Hermione Granger before fifth year)

b) Rush in and confront them with your friends, making a big scene, but miraculously get away with it, leading to a friendship with the victim that you have selflessly saved. (Answer: You are Hermione Granger at any given point in her friendship with Harry and Ron)

c) Slyly confront them, with a few sensible threats, but promise to keep quiet if they leave him alone for now. Afterall, it's not really any of your business. (Answer: You are Hermione Dearborn)

d) Leave them to it. (Answer: You are neither)

She was going mad. Schizophrenic. Split personality disorder. Something that could explain hearing quizzes about your own personality in your head.

.

.

Sure enough, Riddle found her after lunch, when she was on her way to Professor Dumbledore's office for a lesson.

"Can I have a word?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked into an empty classroom.

"Sure, not like I have anywhere to be," she muttered, but followed him in, curious. Like the fly to the spider, she thought. _Oh yes Harry, I thought nothing of following the most dangerous wizard of modern times into a deserted classroom. No, I don't know why. No, I don't think it was that stupid. _

Completely barmy. Mental. She focused on the present.

"About this morning," he said, raking his hand through his hair just like Harry did sometimes and now that she was really looking at him she saw that he looked tired and surprisingly stressed. "I just wanted to let you know that internal action has been taken for my housemates' stupidity."

He looked at her expectantly, as though expecting praise.

"As Head Boy, I really think you ought to be reporting them. They should be _expelled._" Her tone was arctic and he looked surprised.

"It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. However, rest assured the matter has been dealt with."

If he thought he was going to get away with that sort of managerial bullshit... she was furious, but kept calm.

"What did you do, subject them all to the same form of torture they inflicted on that boy? I bet you were just angry they were caught, weren't you Riddle?" That hit home and she knew she was right.

"Slytherin has always had its own traditions when it comes to failure, it isn't my place to interfere in that."

"Actually, it's exactly your place. What I saw this morning was disgraceful and I'm really disappointed in you, I thought you had better control over them than that. Or did you approve it? You say jump and they say how high, right? That's how it's supposed to work." She was losing it, revealing too much of what she knew about his relations with the house behind the perfect Head Boy mask, but _why hadn't he been there. _

He said nothing, and she turned away in disgust.

"I don't approve of such mindless antics, Hermione. I don't see the point in getting so worked up over a sport. However, all members of the team are aware of the consequences if they fail to perform well and that's outside of my field of control." He was lying, he had to be.

"Why didn't they attack me? There were eleven of them and no witnesses."

His eyes seemed to harden for a moment.

"They have been instructed not to," he said stiffly.

"_Instructed_?"

"It is one thing to deal with matters internally, quite another to attack members of other houses." He was covering something up, she could almost taste the lie.

"You're lying. I don't know what you're lying about but they didn't seem to mind sending that Gryffindor to the Hospital Wing last week, and I know it was them so don't tell me he _fell down the stairs _as though I were as stupid as Dippet."

He motioned with his hand and the door flew shut, and suddenly she was facing a very different Tom Riddle. He dropped his mask and let his anger show and it was terrifying, even though she knew she'd been pushing him to it, pushing him to expose himself.

_"Why_ are you so interfering? Just like your damned Godfather. Why did you come here? Everything was - _I_ told them not to touch you because I find you... interesting. I don't care about Craggy or fifth year Gryffindors as long as no one gets caught. Now are you going to tell anyone or not?"

She turned towards the door and raised her wand to open it, but he grabbed her wrist over her robes and pulled her closer, taking her wand with his other hand.

"Are you going to tell anyone?"

"Get your hands off me, immediately."

"I said, _are you going to tell anyone?_" he hissed.

"No I'm bloody not, I said I wouldn't and I won't. I don't care what your pathetic lackeys get up to. Now let me go."

"I don't want to let you go, Dearborn. I want -" he stopped and stared into her eyes for a moment and she was caught for a moment in their darkness, before dropping her arm. "It doesn't matter. Here." He held her wand out and and she took it, fingers shaking, and he left the room without another word. The door slammed shut again behind her.

_One day_, she thought. _One day_.

.

* * *

><p><em>"They haven't invented a spell that our Hermione can't do."- Rubeus Hagrid.<em>

* * *

><p><em>.<em>

Her lesson with Dumbledore was particularly gruelling; he was pushing her mastery of fire spells beyond anything she had imagined possible. The level of control he expected was intense but it was also satisfying to finally have something to really challenge her magically. Casting simultaneous spells and maintaining control over the result was beyond most wizards and she was struggling. There were five fires burning in the room, all different spells and she had to keep them all under her command. The sweat was beading on her forehead when she extinguished them, panting.

"You have to believe in yourself, Hermione. Magic runs on belief, it is limited by the limits our imagination puts on it. You are doing exceptionally well and learning very fast. You can do this. Again."

And again, and again. Fires to consume, fires to distract, fire to warm, fire to kill. They danced, straining her control, unwilling to submit to her mastery.

Eventually, when she was near exhaustion, he allowed her to end and put her wand away. She'd kept it up for nearly half an hour, making her flames obey her will - taking on shapes, moving, combining and separating, never allowed to damage the classroom.

"Excellent. Excellent. Well _done_. Have a seat." He conjured a glass for her and poured some water from the pitcher on his desk.

She grinned, revelling in the feeling of accomplishment. She was getting there, she was improving, she was being _challenged_. She was almost happy, red faced and sweating, but satisfied.

"How are you, more generally?" he asked, when she had drunk deeply of the water.

She considered the question carefully. How was she, really?

"I'm alright. It's been a strange week."

"I heard you did rather well in the duelling contest. I will be helping to oversee the next rounds, Professor Dippet has finally concluded - as he does each year - that we need more staff in the room to assist with all the injuries." His tone was a touch sardonic and she smirked.

"It's a very badly organised contest, if you don't mind me saying so. I mean - the idea is good and it's great that we get to practice, but surely after it's been running for two hundred years they'd have worked out that it would be a good idea to have a medical station in the room and a temporary Nurse assissting?"

"Quite so, and yet..."

She laughed.

"Actually there was something I wanted to talk to you about... I've been a bit shocked at the general treatment of Muggleborns, even by perfectly nice people. It seems, I don't know, socially acceptable somehow to exclude them and look down on them. Am I reading that correctly?"

"You have a very unusual mind, Hermione. You see more than others and you think things through. But yes, you are correct, although it is not just at Hogwarts. It was partly for this reason that I worked so hard to give you a pedigree, so that your life here would be smoother. You have, I think, enough problems without that coming into question."

"I just... I _hate_ it. I hate that even those people I am coming to consider friends have this built in prejudice for absolutely no reason. I don't even understand it. Last week I saw a little boy, probably a first year, crying in the corridor and not even the Prefects bothered to help him because he was a Muggleborn. I don't understand. And there are so few in the school, when I'm from the proportion isn't so skewed. And it is really unacceptable to call someone a Mudblood for most people. I thought it wouldn't be as bad here because, well because of some things that are going to happen but it's _worse_."

"Interesting. I can't comment on that, naturally, but I'm glad to hear it. Even I, in my youth, considered Muggleborns and Muggles as... lesser. It is a very ingrained part of society."

"I've been using my unconventional upbringing as an excuse not to be involved, but every time I have to bite my tongue or leave the room because I know I shouldn't cause a scene, I know it's not the time for that fight but... it's so _hard_. And I feel like a fake because they wouldn't like me if they knew I was a Granger rather than a Dearborn."_  
><em>

She felt tears welling in her eyes, and embarrassed, stood and stared out of the window.

"You have many burdens to bear. I am sorry that this is one of them, but I do advise you to keep your own council on the matter for now. Do not feel guilty that your real background would invite prejudice from those who would be your friend. That is their failing, not yours. However, it is a dangerous thing to be seen to openly embrace Muggle culture. The fear is very deeply rooted, and it is from fear that the hatred and mistrust spring. A fear that is not wholly unjust - secrecy is paramount for the survival of our world - but that is not to say that it is right that those children born with the gift of magic should suffer for it. If you must make your views on the subject known, or attempt to influence people's opinions I suggest you are very subtle about it. Change is a slow thing, Hermione. Now, on a brighter note I hear that Professor Slughorn is particularly delighted with your and Tom's work this term."

"Yes, well, it's quite an easy potion as long as you get the timings right."

"Something so many people fail to recognise. _Timing._ Quite so."

The importance of timing. He was giving her a message. There will come a time... Choose your time wisely. Time.

"What if you're right and I can never go home?" she asked, pressing her face against the glass. It was dark outside, and the forest spread menacingly in the distance, the lake gleaming darkly beside it.

"Then you must make the best of it. There is nothing else."

"I just... I'm going to be _old_. When I see my friends and family again. I'll be, what, seventy-five. Seventy-five! Half a lifetime lost to a past, to secrecy..."

"Ageing isn't such a terrible thing, Hermione. And you are very powerful, I expect you will live to a great age."

"I'll still be old enough to be my mother's mother the next time I see her though."

He was silent, because what was there to say?

"I... just - I miss them. It comes and goes, and I try not to but I do. I miss them all so much sometimes I can hardly bear it. I don't want to sleep in case I dream about them, but when I wake up it's like losing them all over again. And they're so _angry_ sometimes, not my parents, I always dream about them crying. I know it's not your fault I'm here and I know that I have to be, I understand that. But it is... unbearable. Sometimes. And the rest of the time I shutter it away and don't think about it all and then I just don't really feel _anything_."

"Love makes us very strong, but it also causes us such pain. Don't lose your love for those you have left behind, but don't shut yourself away from the possibilities of a life here. It would be a terrible waste of such a warm heart."

"I'm trying. I really am. But I don't feel like anyone sees me for who I really am. Like I'm just playing a part. Acting, always acting. And if I act for long enough, mightn't it become the truth? In fifty five years maybe I'll have forgotten their faces. I can feel myself changing already."

"We forget many things in time, but your love for your parents will never leave you."

But what about her friends? Sometimes she would panic because she had forgotten their faces and then an image would rise, a photograph, a memory, and she would relax again.

"Is there any progress on how I will get here?"

"I am focusing my research on the best clue we have, the colour - Octarine." He said the word with some reverence. "There is precious little information on it, and I may have to take a trip at Christmas."

The memory of the experience gave her a surprising warmth.

"The colour of magic. The true colour of magic. It was wonderful wasn't it?"

"Indeed it was, an extraordinary privilege to witness such a thing. And to know that we created it... yes. It was wonderful."

"I could come with you, on the trip. I want to help."

"The time will come for your involvement, Hermione, but for now I would rather that you concentrate on your studies, at least until we have more to go on. Besides, I believe you have some family commitments at that time. Cerdic's brother is a fine man, although he has a quick temper and a rash disposition. His son was in Gryffindor... young Caradoc. He would have been Head Boy but he got into rather too much trouble with the young ladies, a little too popular I believe, and was always sneaking off to Hogsmeade to go to the pub with his friends. I liked him very much. He must have left... five years ago? Perhaps six."

Her _family, _except...

"I'm an impostor. They're _not_ my family."

"Cerdic is delighted with you, I haven't seen him so willing to be sociable in many years. You are very good for him, Hermione. The benefits of the arrangement are not solely for you, which is why I chose him. In accepting you into his life, he has remembered something he had lost. Sometimes you _can_ choose your family."

"He has been astoundingly kind," she admitted. "Sometimes it's as though he forgets that I'm not really his daughter."

"Perhaps he has decided that you are, despite how you arrived in such a position."

"He barely knows me. You don't learn to love a child in two months."

"Give him a little more credit than that, Hermione, and yourself. I didn't say he loved you, I said that he had accepted you as his child. Love will come, perhaps, or not, but either way, you are his family now. He is a very lonely man even if he doesn't realise that. A very lonely man who once enjoyed the company of women - as friends, as lovers, as colleagues. You have brought him back to life. He has even agreed to attend Professor Slughorn's Christmas Party."

"Crikey. I didn't know that. Has he really?"

"Indeed. I know you feel that you have been foisted upon him, but he confided in me that after his visit in the summer his work had picked up again, and that he was back in contact with several old friends. And it was Cerdic who wrote to his family to invite them, despite what he will say. He wants to show you off, I believe. He once loved a young woman, she was a little like you in fact, but she died in a terrible accident and he retreated into himself and now, it seems, he is coming back out."

She felt a lot better after her conversation with Dumbledore. Her feelings towards her fellow students might be ambiguous, but there were at least two people in the Wizarding World who knew her for what she really was and liked her, respected her even, and that was... comforting.

.

.

Less comforting, when she had time to analyse it, were the implications from her conversation with Riddle. Quite the opposite of comforting, in fact. Really rather disturbing.

He had instructed the Slytherins not to harm her. Just in general. Because he hadn't been there to call them off and couldn't possibly have foresee that morning, so it was a general and obviously quite specific instruction.

He wanted something he wasn't willing to vocalise. Something that was confusing him enough to lose his cool and drop his facade.

He trusted her, enough not to coerce or control her.

He wanted something.

He thought she was _interesting_. Interesting was not a positive way for him to feel about her, and was exactly the opposite of her original intention. Interesting meant paying close attention.

And for a boy with an unhealthy propensity for obsession and for finding information others couldn't _interesting_ was, frankly, an absolutely terrifying prospect.

* * *

><p>Eh, voila -<p>

What did you think? Thank you to all who reviewed, followed, and favourited (particularly lovely comments from Shay & Danielle who I can't reply to privately). It means so much and I'm grateful for everyone who bothers to take the time to let me know what they think!

xx


	12. Discordant

"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

― Margaret Mitchell, _Gone with the Wind_

* * *

><p>Hermione pushed her concerns about society in general aside for the time being and allowed the more immediate concerns of Hogwarts to distract her. As this was primarily the duelling contest for their year, Hermione chose to sneak in the copy of <em>The Art of War<em> to her Monday morning lessons. A little preparation went a long way and the competition was heating up: she would have to face both Sophia and Marcus, the two best duellists left to fight and another boy who was a dangerous duellist but with whom she had never spoken - possibly (and unfortunately) because he was a Muggleborn.

She had decided that the best course of action was to keep up the act and treat it as research.

How was she supposed to change society if she didn't understand the history, and what better way to learn than to live through it? Satisfied with this justification, and with Dumbledore's emphasis on timing, she had pushed the issue to the back of her mind in order to focus on the daily matters of living a lie.

She sat next to Marcus in Ancient Runes, which was the class that had been suffering most from her inattention because it was the worst taught at Hogwarts. It was his second-best subject after Charms and much better attended than it was in her time, but still not a popular option for NEWTs. Most Seventh Years only took four or five of the possible seven available, and excepting Riddle, she didn't know of anyone else doing the maximum number. Indeed, she had to admire Riddle's dedication to his studies given that he was also probably researching vast amounts of Dark Magic, and conducting horrible torture sessions on top of it, and all without the advantage of having done the whole year already. He had chosen a seat further away from her than normal, which was a relief, sitting next to Avery and Greengrass.

When Professor Elphinstone told them to read the next chapter and make notes, Hermione sighed with irritation at the poor teaching method even as she rejoiced at the early opportunity to get stuck into her own research - she could probably have recited the whole chapter anyway and had glanced over it again as preparation for the class the previous evening.

She opened her book (expertly spelled while fiddling in her satchel to look like the textbook she was supposed to be reading) as everyone else got their textbooks, and began to read. It really was fortunate that the little volume had been included in the books she'd picked up in Hogsmeade, although she hadn't noticed it at the time. She rather wished she had read it when she was actually fighting in a proper war but nonetheless it was never a bad time to learn how to strategise. Maybe her chess playing would improve...

Skimming over the parts that solely referred to an actual army (such as the cost of maintaining one - hardly relevant) as she was an army of one person, she became absorbed in the volume and dutifully began to take notes.

_If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle._

This is probably obvious, she noted underneath, however it highlights the importance of research.

_1. Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. 2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. 3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy. 4. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.  
><em>

Well that was exactly what she was trying to do, which was encouraging. She continued.

_13. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated._

All very well in theory, but even a perfectionist like herself might make some mistakes.

It was a frustrating point. However, the preceding reflection on winning with ease cemented her view that a long-fought duel was an inefficient - and therefore problematic - one. Although, Dumbledore's duel with Grindlewald had gone on for three hours so that indicated a problem. Perhaps it _was_ badly fought: too many emotions involved? She made a note to consider this later.

Indeed, it seemed likely that both men had missed many opportunities to win, perhaps neither of their hearts had been in it. She had long suspected, not something she had shared with Ron and Harry, that Albus had loved Gellert Grindlewald very much and been loved in return and that they had still loved each other despite all the awfulness between them.

She would not have that problem, and therefore would be the good fighter - terrible in her onset, and prompt in her decision. Particularly when she came to fight Tom bloody Riddle.

Reading on, Hermione was absoutely amazed that this book wasn't used as a handbook for the Slytherins: _Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions._

This had never been a strong-point of hers, she had to admit. Pretending to be weak, when all she had ever wanted to do was be strong... Perhaps it would be sensible to lose a few tactical duels in order to lull her opponents? She would have to consult the points board to ensure that she still went through into the top four, but it would probably be clever to be the lowest ranked if she could manage it. She supposed that she had naturally appeared weak in the war: a young witch, and a Muggleborn. And certainly she had learnt the importance of ending it quickly - that was immensely obvious.

She took a moment to enjoy the image of Dolohov under her Full-Body-Bind before continuing on.

Hermione had just been given an absolutely brilliant and very unorthodox idea when the Professor handed out a translation, and it was with uncharacteristic reluctance that she set to her classwork.

Despite Riddle's choice of seat at the other side of the classroom, she made sure her disguised book and notes were tucked deep into her satchel before beginning. It wouldn't do to give the prat any ideas and judging from his later tactics in the War he probably hadn't bothered to read the book, or had forgotten its wealth of wisdom if he ever had.

Probably just decided he was too _extraordinary_ for that though. Arse.

She finished after Marcus and he sat impatiently trying to read over her shoulder. Normally she was faster than him, but her mind had been spinning over the idea that had taken hold and she hadn't been concentrating.

"Done," she whispered.

"Finally. I didn't see you at breakfast, everything alright?"

"Yes, just wasn't very hungry. How are you?"

"I'm good. Better now you're talking..."

Before they could move onto more interesting topics, Professor Elphinstone looked up and frowned at them. "If you have any questions Miss Dearborn, Mister Blishwick, please address them directly to me. If you happen to have finished, I will be happy to assign you another exercise."

"Bitch," Hermione muttered under her breath, and swapped parchments with Marcus to check over the work. His was pleasingly competent, only one mistake.

_How did I do?_ she wrote and passed the note to him.

_Perfect as usual. Swot._

Suddenly having an idea, she dove into her satchel and pulled out a thick, resistant piece of parchment. Making sure to stay out of Elphinstone's sight - she was pretty sure the woman was hungover, truth be told - Hermione silently cast _discerpo_ to split the parchment in two and then followed it up with a Protean Charm. It would work a bit like Riddle's diary, whatever she wrote on one would appear on the other before vanishing when you wrote on the other, and vice versa.

Silently, she demonstrated how they worked and Marcus beamed at her.

_You really are a clever swot, _he wrote, to test, for all the world looking absorbed in his work.

Yes, she thought smugly. She really was.

At last the class was over and Hermione followed Marcus out of the door. Claire caught up with them.

"Marcus? Could I steal you for a moment, I don't understand this..."

"I've got to get to History of Magic. See you both at lunch?" Hermione said and Marcus nodded, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She walked off, feeling very satisfied, and looking forward to another class in which she could continue her private studies - Binns wouldn't notice (or, probably, care). She had another pang at the thought of what Ron and Harry would say but brushed it off. She would think about them later.

.

Hermione's departure caused her to miss the conversation that followed. Avery approached Marcus and Claire, with a friendly smile.

"Looking forward to the second round Blishwick?" he asked, after some inane conversation.

"Of the duelling? Yes - it's been quite fun thus far."

"I don't suppose you're looking forward to being thrashed by your girlfriend though... oh, look. I'm going this way. See you later." And he was gone.

The slightly sick look on Marcus's face showed that the barb had had its desired effect.

"Ignore him," Claire said, pressing his hand earnestly. "He's just trying to get under your skin. "

"Why would he care? And you know, it doesn't matter if she does win. I don't care. It's just... she's _amazing,_ but so amazing I feel a bit inadequate next to her," he sighed. "I'm sorry, Claire. I shouldn't be discussing this with you."

He _did_ care though. He'd like her to win by letting her, because he wanted to be a gentleman not because she could hex him three ways to Samhain.

"Marcus... you can always talk to me, even -"

"Morning Claire, Blishwick. Are you heading to Potions?" Riddle asked brightly from behind, his long stride easily catching up with them from where he had been standing, discussing something with Professor Elphinstone.

"I'm headed to Charms, mind if I walk with you a while? Gods that class was dull."

Marcus was smiling at Tom, nodding in agreement, probably relieved at the interruption, and they walked down to the second floor with him. Claire blushed a little at what she had nearly said, but as Tom Riddle turned his smile on her, asking her how she was and how her term was going, the blush deepened. Her heart might belong to someone else, but he really was too gorgeous for words and he made her stutter. They reached the Charms corridor and he turned to Marcus.

"Would you remind Hermione that we need to check the Potion after lunch? Speaking of Hermione, apparently her duelling is very impressive..."

Claire felt a surge of pity at the look on Marcus's face, jealousy, a bit of anger, and something else - and it wasn't as though Hermione would ever forget to check on her potion, so why had Riddle mentioned it? She stroked his arm, gently and saw Riddle notice it and then send her an assessing look. He smirked at her and she felt a slight thrill of trepidation.

"Yes, she's very good."

"So are you, Marcus!" Claire defended and then felt stupid. Riddle always made her feel stupid, clumsy and slow and inadequate.

"Hopefully I'll get to see it myself soon. See you later," Riddle smiled at them, and walked into the Charms classroom.

.

.

Marcus was surprisingly quiet at lunch, and seemed uninterested in his food.

"What's wrong?" she asked him quietly.

"Nothing, nothing. How was History of Magic?"

She wrinkled her nose in answer and he laughed.

"How was Potions? How long does your Polyjuice have left?" she asked. Due to different schedules, Marcus had Potions at a different time from her, because he was taking Herbology and she was not.

Satisfied that whatever was wrong wasn't related to her, Hermione continued pondering her strategy. It had become clear to her that she would have to lose to Marcus or Sophia in the duels, in order to appear weaker than she really was. As she was up against Marcus first she would try and beat him and lose to Sophia. The girl was dangerous and could still win anyway, and beating Marcus would secure her place in the final four before she lost strategically to the deceptively elegant blonde. It was perfect.

"I've got to go to work on the Polyjuice. Nearly finished thank Merlin. See you later." Hermione stood, and saw Riddle getting up to follow her. Longbottom was nowhere to been seen as usual, but she had tried at least.

"Alright Dearborn?" he said casually, and she nodded in reply without returning the courtesy. After yesterday's bizzare display she was not keen to talk to him and he left her in peace as they silently put the finishing touches to the Polyjuice. It would be finished by Friday, marking a month from the beginnings of her association with Tom Riddle.

A month without trying to kill him - she supposed that was something. Points to her ability to keep up a persona at the very least. Perhaps she ought to head over to Hollywood at the end of the year.

"Shall we head up to Defence? It's a bit early, but there's nothing left to do here." He had, as usual, let her do the clearing up.

"Fine."

"So tetchy, Dearborn."

She didn't dignify him with a response. He knew why she was cross, although he had been surprisingly quiet. Whatever was wrong with him, causing the dark shadows under his dark eyes, was of absolutely no interest to her. None. At least he wasn't pretending to flirt with her anymore. That was a good thing even if it would never _work_. And she definitely did not miss debating with him. This was better.

They settled at separate sides of the classroom, and she noticed that he choose a desk on the row behind hers just as he had in Runes. Strange, but probably coincidental. As the other students arrived, Hermione opened the textbook to check what was on the syllabus today._ Dark Creatures, Continuation_. The sixth years covered Dementors and Inferi, although the Patronus wasn't taught until Seventh Year... but they might be covering rarer creatures such as lethifolds.

"Good afternoon," Merrythought appeared at the front of the classroom from nowhere and Hermione suspected she had been sitting under a Disillusionment spell but it was a clever trick that got everyone's attention anyway. "Today we will be focusing on one of the most difficult and subtle spells. Most of you will never be able to cast this spell fully. It is not solely dependent on the power or talent of the witch or wizard casting it, but requires a more advanced understanding of the relation between the mind and the magic."

The Patronus then.

"Put your books away, there is nothing held within those sensible pages that will assist you today. Pick up your wands and spread out." The desks, chairs, and bags piled up neatly at the back of the classroom with a wave of her wand.

"The spell is one many of you may have heard of, but few will ever have seen in practice, I hope. It banishes those leeches of the world, the dementor and the lethifold, fighting their parasitic darkness with the bright light of your happiness. To cast a corporeal Patronus requires a feat of imaginative willpower, and anyone who achieves one will earn twenty points to their house. Most adult wizards and witches cannot cast one, but the I want you to take five minutes to contemplate your short lives, and find the moment in which you have been truly happy. A memory of such happiness, unadulterated happiness, that you feel a burst of joy in your chest just at the thought."

She taught them the correct incantation and Hermione tuned out, trying to focus on a happy memory. The first time Ron kissed her resulted in a rather weak effort, nowhere near the dancing otter that had burst from her wand in the DA, and that felt like a lifetime ago. She had always theorised that this particular spell had come so easily to Harry because had he known such little happiness that those moments of joy were much more powerfully felt. She, with her insecurities and over-questioning mind, and loving but ordinary parents had always struggled with this spell.

An eagle soared out of Sophia's wand about twenty minutes into the class and even the usually composed girl couldn't contain her pleasure. It was a beautiful sight and Hermione felt a pang of loss - none of the memories she had ever used before were working; they were all tinged with the dingy blue sadness of loss: Ron's love only a reminder that she was parted completely from him, winning the war a reminder of the deaths incurred, the cost of victory... her Hogwarts letter, her first spell, her success in exams all brought wisps of silver, powerless against a Dementor in practice.

She began to wonder if she would ever cast it successfully again when one memory occurred that was so truly wonderful that even the subsequent problems couldn't be touched by it. The moment she had realised that Harry was not dead, when he had revealed himself from underneath his cloak...

She focused on it, a moment of wonder amid so much horror, the power of hope stronger than any individual pleasure and cast with all her strength. A silver leopard came bounding from her wand, and Hermione stared at it in horror.

Where was her playful otter, her love for Ron in spirit form?

Even the pleasure of success and the murmurs of wonder around her couldn't distract from the single realisation that she had changed beyond recognition since she had last cast a Patronus, fired up with Ron's love in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Sophia's eagle dived from the high ceiling, distracting the class from the silvery leopard with its flight and she exchanged a happy grin with Hermione, who pushed her worries behind her to focus on her new spirit guardian.

"Hello beauty," she whispered, and it shot her a haughty look before leaping on top of the cupboard in the corner and curling up, and then she was caught in Tom's dark gaze, the hungry expression on his face more disturbing than the realisation of change.

"You are a swot," Marcus said behind her, but he wasn't smiling as she dragged her eyes away from Riddle to look up at him as he slung an arm over her shoulders. "You and Sophia are terrifying. Rowena help us all if you team up for anything." He was smiling now though, but there was still something in his eyes... he was hiding something.

"What's your happy memory? It needs to be... overwhelming, not just nice or pleasant. An extraordinary moment. To be honest, I think happy is the wrong word - more like sublime or ecstatic. At least for the first time, but I've read that once you master it, your confidence means that you can call it up more easily."

This was true from her experience as well, because you didn't have time to focus on memories in the middle of a battle and actually the pressure helped.

"My father told me that a lot of people can cast one, but it only comes out when they need to. Show me your incantation."

He did, and a very vibrant, strong burst of silver came from his wand.

"That's perfect but you need a different memory I think. Something a bit stronger?"

"Kiss me and give me a new one then," he teased and she actually blushed, pleased.

"Not here you prat."

"Even Riddle hasn't managed it. Unusual."

Someone else had succeeded though, Hermione noticed, as a vicious looking mink scuttled past.

"Well he hasn't had a very happy life, has he?" she murmured, and she wondered whether Riddle's uncharacteristic failure was to do with his dark interests, or the fact that he was already missing parts of his soul or if, as she'd said, he simply didn't have a happy enough memory. She despised herself for the pang of sympathy that arose as she glanced across at him and saw his faced, clouded with frustration and anger.

The accepted idea that Dark Wizards couldn't cast a Patronus wasn't exactly true but it did hold as a general rule, and she wondered if you needed a full and complete soul to achieve it or if it really was a case of not having enough joy and goodness to hold onto.

Looking back up at Marcus she saw that he too was looking at Riddle, a strange expression on his face.

"We will continue on Wednesday's class. Well done to Miss Selwyn and Miss Dearborn, that's forty points to Ravenclaw, and twenty to Slytherin for Miss Greengrass. It looks like you young men have got some catching up to do! Still, very impressive ladies. Very impressive indeed." Professor Merrythought looked absolutely delighted at the success of her female students, and Hermione knew from experience that three out of twenty was good odds.

Hermione was surprised that Greengrass had managed it - she was clearly more powerful than her unspectacular great-niece. She would definitely be keeping an eye on that one.

Still, kudos for girl power at least, she supposed.

.

The Ravenclaws were in a celebratory mood at supper, unusually pleased at someone else's success, and at having beaten Slytherin in points. From the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables similarly happy moods indicated that there had been success there as well.

"What does it _feel_ like?" Hector was asking Sophia who just shrugged and looked at Hermione.

"Sublime," Hermione said, smiling. "Not something _you'd _understand though... emotional range of a teaspoon that one." The Ravenclaws laughed.

"Maybe it's easier for witches?" He continued after the teasing had died down.

"Not historically, but of course witches are generally so much more powerful. What can I say?"

She was in an extremely good mood, and unusually willing to banter. She'd never had a great sense of humour but it seemed that she either had to find one or be miserable forever, and if she was making people laugh then she wasn't worrying and fretting about why why why she had a leopard instead of an otter.

Later, alone in her room, she couldn't hide from her own mind any longer. She had killed people, she knew that. Her thoughtless _Duro_ - brilliant though it had been - had been the end of the road for the two Death Eaters chasing her, Harry and Ron when they were trying to get to the Shrieking Shack during the Battle of Hogwarts. They had crumpled against her stone, going far too fast, and had died instantly. Ron and Harry had never mentioned it, and she wasn't sure if they even knew...

But then again if she had been more willing to kill, could she have beaten Bellatrix? She had been severely hampered by using the witch's wand against its true owner, for she had never won its allegiance, but it was still a sore spot that Mrs Weasley had beaten Bellatrix and Hermione had her torture, she had been the one Death Eater apart from Dolohov that Hermione had truly wanted to fight, to beat, and Mrs Weasley had stolen that; even Neville had been robbed of his vengeance.

And people had been pleased, silently, that the children had been spared from the scars taking their revenge would have left. She should have relished the opportunity, fought properly, freely - just once, like Bellatrix herself and shown her exactly how capable she was, muddy blood and all.

Bellatrix Lestrange, defeated and killed by a Muggleborn witch some twenty years her junior: _that_ would have been a more fitting end.

The woman still haunted her dreams. She hadn't succumbed to her torture though, so that was a victory in itself. Most people had ended up dead or in St Mungos like Neville's parents after a round of Lestrange's special treatment. She had barely been affected, her compartmentalised mind protecting her, even allowing her to lie under such duress.

Realistically, though, her mind confronted her, the change implied that she was no longer in love with Ronald Weasley - the otter had been her unspoken exaltation of his playful nature - not that he'd ever known that - and Hermione felt her heart break at the thought. She was moving on after all. But a leopard? Leopards were solitary predators, unloving and cold. She turned, as she often did in moments of stress, to a book and selected Roberto Salema's _Encyclopaedia of Animals, Both Magical and Non Magical_.

_Neither the lion with his impressive majesty, nor the tiger with his cruel power, nor all other cats have together the magnificent lines, the beauty of allure, the richness of fur and the grace of motion of leopards. Leopards are supposed to be the most athletic as well as the most intelligent of cats. No other cat is as cruel, cunning, bloodthirsty and brave as the leopard. The most secretive and elusive of the large carnivores, the leopard is also the shrewdest.*_

Well that was hardly an accurate reflection of herself, she thought, annoyed, and tossed the book away. She was secretive, cunning and brave, but she was hardly bloodthirsty or cruel. Or athletic for that matter! It was ridiculous. She would think about it later. Firstly: homework. She went to the library, because she was still Hermione Granger and that was what she did.

.

.

Thursday evening brought the second round of the Ravenclaw duels. The first to duel were those who had been incapacitated in the Hospital Wing, who had to catch up with everyone else. It was rather tiresome, actually, watching the mediocre efforts of most of the house. They were still probably better upon average that they had been before the war in Hermione's time, but the natural Ravenclaw instinct to over think things and try to be too clever held them back.

"Well this is truly great entertainment," Sophia murmured to Hermione.

"Shaking in your boots Selwyn?"

She smirked. "You should be the one shaking, not me."

Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed with relief as the proper duels were about to start. This time they had doubled the attending staff and set it up so two duels would be occurring at once (which Hermione thought was probably going to cause issues for most people but she wasn't going to complain about extra distractions).

"I've got a special something lined up for you, don't worry."

Surprisingly Sophia gave her a genuine smile. "May the best witch win?"

"If only it were a team sport."

"Now there's a thought!"

She was fighting well below her best, Sun Tzu's advice to appear weak when you are strong taken firmly to heart. Riddle, she knew, would interrogate all the details out of someone and she wanted to play on his natural arrogance to keep him over-confident for their meeting. Still, it didn't take much to dispatch her first two opponents and then it was Marcus.

He didn't look happy at having to fight her, which was odd. Harry and Ron had never minded at all, and there had been no evidence of the boys holding back against the girls before. She had hardly seen him, sensing that he was out of sorts and besides she had been extremely busy with her research, often missing meals.

"On three. One, two, three."

He hesitated to cast, and she took advantage, sneaking in a gentle stinging hex. She had to admit, there was little desire to thrash him and as long as she won it didn't matter how quickly. The hex seemed to jolt him and he stepped up his game with a fierce stunner that she dodged rather than waste energy blocking.

"Very nice," she commented as she sent a silent _Impedimenta_ at him, which almost got there, but he threw up a weak shield. That was what she wanted, she didn't think he was capable of maintaining it while casting - after all most adult wizards could barely conjure a shield charm - and her next spell was cast with all her considerable power, crashing through the shield to disarm him. She summoned his wand before it fell to the ground and he bowed jerkily in light of her submission.

Not a very graceful loser, she thought, examining the storm look on his face, but nonetheless it was done and now all she had to do was lose to Sophia... well, she had two more opponents before then - another girl in their year Kaitlyn O'Malley and someone else whose name escaped her, but still.

At last, it was time to duel her and they stood, summoned to the centre of the room and there were some excited mutterings. Hermione had been preoccupied with research and hadn't spend much time with her House in the past few days but after Monday's Defence lesson she supposed that this was the big interest for the evening.

"Nice of them to save the best for last," she said, bowing to Sophia without taking her eyes off the girl. The countdown came -_One, two, three_ - but neither moved, other than to slowly draw their wands, eye contact unbroken.

They stood facing each other, wands out, but neither one casting a spell. The only sounds came from the other duel going on next to them - Kaitlyn O'Malley, a Muggleborn girl in their year that Hermione had rarely spoken to, but fought earlier, was duelling Hector. It sounded vicious but she blocked it out, focusing on her surroundings, on the witch opposite, poised to attach.

"Come on ladies, we don't have all evening."

"Just waiting for the opportune moment, Professor," Sophia said cheekily. And that was it, the slight distraction. Hermione fired off her spells more quickly that she had in any other duel, she wanted to be beaten convincingly after all so had to start strong, but the sharp eyed girl was a good match and off they went. At last, Hermione, hoping no one would realise what she was doing, she dropped her shield for long enough that Sophia's stunner sent her to the floor, her own hex ricocheting off target and into the wall.

"Well done," she said to Sophia, after an enervate and some chocolate.

"Yes, clearly I am the best witch after all." Sophia was smirking, but Hermione wondered if she was really fooled, and realised in that moment that she actually genuinely respected this girl, a girl she was fairly sure was going to bear Lucius Malfoy sometime in the next ten years. It was hard to reconcile. The girl was a Selwyn, a famously vicious family, so well respected that Umbridge has chosen them to falsify the connection. Respected, but extinct in the male line by Hermione's time, like so many other families.

"Shut up, Selwyn. Don't forget we're going to get a rematch..."

"Looks like we're going to get another round as well Sophia," Marcus said as he walked over to them from where he had been standing in front of the results board. "Well done, cousin."

His tone was cooler than usual and Hermione lifted an eyebrow and Sophia who indicated that she didn't know what was wrong either with a quirk of her mouth.

"See you in the morning." He pressed a kiss to Hermione's cheek and walked off.

"He's been off all week. Any ideas?"

"Yes actually, but I'll have to do some checking up... let's go back to the Tower."

* * *

><p>*This is actually quoted from a hunting treatise on the leopard -sad face, but I've credited him as the author of a book Hermione might actually have instead.<p>

** Thank you to all who reviewed as always. You keep me going. **

**Only halfway through replying but I will and if I have missed you off then apologies and let me know! And to those who follow/favourite - take a second to let me know what you thought?**

**Please tell me if you spotted any mistakes/inconsistencies!**

Poor Hermione, flattering the male ego was never exactly her strong suit (quite rightly). Maybe your Patronus isn't all about you Hermione? God. So self-preoccupied.

Love,

A


	13. Jealousy i

"A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort."

_― _Gillian Flynn__,_ Sharp Objects_

* * *

><p>At breakfast on Friday morning, Hermione slipped into the seat Sophia had saved for her.<p>

"Any updates?" she asked the blonde, tucking into a bowl of porridge.

"Yes actually. It appears Avery and some others made... comments regarding you beating him in the duel."

"Seriously? _That's_ why he's upset? That's ridiculous," she hissed impatiently.

"Yes, well it's hardly customary for your girlfriend to be so much better than you at everything." Sophia replied with a shrug, pouring herself a goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Men..." Hermione muttered. She looked up at the Slytherin table and saw that Tom Riddle was smirking over at Marcus, Lestrange muttering quietly to him. She would have to deal with this, and although it was stupid and pathetic that Marcus would be so affected, she supposed it was also sort of understandable. "I thought he liked me _because_ I was clever."

"Well he does, in theory, Hermione. But really if you were going to lose to one of us it would have been cleverer to pick him."

Hermione met Sophia's eyes and saw the girl smiling faintly. She _hadn't_ been fooled then. Damn.

"He was quite upset, Hermione," Claire said quietly across the table. "And he's jealous of Riddle as well. You should probably have noticed that already."

"Why on earth is he jealous of Riddle?" she asked, stomach clenching.

"Any fool could tell you that... the one boy in this school who rivals, even surpasses you, who happens to be ridiculously handsome. Of course he's jealous," Sophia said, very matter of fact, as she neatly cut up her bacon.

Hermione threw her spoon into her bowl so that it made a dramatic clanging sound and stood up and walked over to Marcus's chair. Channelling Lavender as best she could, she hissed, "How _could _you?"

"Hermione - what - I -"

Quite proud of the tears forming in her eyes, she said in a stage whisper, "You _let me win._ I thought you respected me! Unacceptable!" And then she turned on her heel and flounced out of the Hall.

She went to collect her books from the Tower, looking forward to one of the few lessons that didn't bore her, and waited for Sophia, the only other one who took Arithmancy, in the Common Room.

"That was quite a performance," the blonde girl commented, amused, as the walked together.

"It was quite fun actually," Hermione confessed. And if that was all it took to soothe her new probably-a-boyfriend's ego then fine. In a way, it was quite nice to have such basic problems to deal with for once. Ron had always been too busy being jealous of Harry to worry too much about her and besides, he hadn't cared about doing well in class... She pushed him to the back of her mind. She _had_ to learn to let go.

"You're quite the sly one aren't you?"

"Speak for yourself," Hermione teased. "What happened after I left?"

"Marcus protested a bit and then left. I think most people actually believed you, amazingly enough. He did seem quite reluctant to fight you yesterday."

"Yes well, he's a twit then. I don't need to be coddled just because he likes kissing me." Hermione blushed a bit at what she'd let slip. "I didn't realise he was your cousin," she said, referring to how Sophia had addressed him the night before.

"His mother is my mother's elder sister. Rosiers. We grew up together. He is a twit, but he does seem to like you. I always thought he would end up with Claire, she's been waiting long enough but then you came along and all the boys - well, you know how they are with something new. Especially new _and_ pretty _and_ clever. You caused a bit of a stir on the first night I must say."

That was a bit of a complicated sentence really, and Hermione took a moment to sort through the information.

"Claire? I hadn't realised..." She felt terrible but quite flattered - she hadn't accounted for such a reaction, had forgotten how tiresome it was to live with the same people for seven years, how extraordinarily exciting a new face was after all of that.

"These things happen. Claire is nice enough but she's a bit... weak. Still, I'm sure when you inevitably realise that Marcus isn't the person you find fascinating she'll be there to console him."

Hermione paused, grateful that the corridor they were in was empty and turned to face Sophia. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't get all defensive with me, Hermione. I've got more brains than most of these idiots and I don't think Marcus is the person you spend all day thinking about. I don't know what's going on with you and Riddle, and I'm not going to get involved, but I hope my cousin isn't too hurt when it inevitably occurs to him that you're falling for someone else. Someone who, I might add, seems to be a perfect match for you in every way. You're no saint and you're definitely hiding something, and he's, well, he's definitely complicated, but you fit together somehow."

_You're no saint and you're definitely hiding something. _For the first time in a long time Hermione felt real fear slide down her back.

She kept her face expressionless, and snapped, "Not this again. I don't want Riddle for Merlin's sake! I've had it up to _here_ with people insinuating and assuming -"

"Lie to me if you want. You'll work it out eventually. Now come on, we're going to be late," Sophia replied calmly and added, "I do like you, Hermione and I'll let you keep your secrets, but you're a fool to think Tom isn't obsessed with them and with you."

.

The Polyjuice Potion was finished at last, the last lacewing flies added and it sat finished and perfect looking (if revolting). Slughorn would be delighted.

"Want to try it, Longbottom?" Tom asked casually. He looked very satisfied, she thought, and couldn't deny the sense of accomplishment she felt.

"Rather you than me, I've heard it's disgusting."

"Run and fetch Professor Slughorn then," he ordered (politely of course) and then turned to face Hermione. He gave her one of those rare smiles that hit his eyes.

"I can't say I'm surprised, but it looks perfect."

She nodded in agreement, unable to help herself returning his smile.

"Fancy going to lunch as Tom Riddle?" he offered and she snorted. It was quite tempting, actually.

"Merlin only knows what sort of havoc you'd wreak in my body if we swapped identities - I think I'll pass."

She kept her eyes on the potion as much as she could, just in case he wanted to steal some for his own nefarious ends, until Slughorn came in, trailed by Longbottom to examine it. She really wanted to take some herself - it was so _useful_ - but he was paying far too much attention.

"Well I daresay there's no real need to test yours," he said with a big wink. "Still, better have a look. Tom, a hair please m'boy?"

Tom pulled one of the jet black hairs from his head without a wince, and held it out.

"Excellent, excellent. Now no need to be swapping robes so I'll just give this to you Longbottom. You'll need to describe everything that happens so Tom can record it. Miss Dearborn, come and observe."

Slugborn ladled out some of the potion into a beaker, and handed it to her. She proffered it to Tom who dropped the hair in, a bit reluctantly. Hermione peered at the potion, which had changed to a dark velvety green. She had expected worse, truth be told. It looked much nicer than Bellatrix.

"You look really tasty, Riddle. Like old curtains. Go on then Longbottom," Hermione said and gave the beaker a swirl and handed it to him. It didn't smell too bad actually.

His transformation was rapid, and didn't seem to be too painful which indicated a high quality brew. She watched as he grew, muscular body leaning down, sandy hair turning to jet, cheekbones sharpening... Watching the change didn't prepare her for the oddity of having _two_ Tom Riddle's in the room.

"What did it taste like?" she asked, curiously.

"Sort of foresty? Like pine maybe. Not very pleasant, sorry Tom," Longbottom-Tom grinned and seeing Tom's face light up like that made Hermione's heart clench. It was an easy-going expression that would never cross the real Riddle's face.

"Well done, well done. A very nice potion. Record how long till it wears off, it should be an hour with that dosage, and then you're free to clear up. I'll take your cauldron through now though, no sense in leaving such a potentially mischievous potion lying around is there?" Slughorn chuckled and shuffled out with the cauldron. She suspected it would be packaged up and sold as part of his apothecary, which definitely wasn't allowed, but ultimately didn't matter.

Watching Tom Riddle crack jokes, allow his emotions to run rampant across his face, sigh in boredom, and laugh unrestrainedly was completely surreal for Hermione and she could see Riddle's complete fascination watching his doppelgänger as well. His dark eyes gleaming with amusement, his smile so glorious... It was terribly sad - his beauty released in such a way was mind blowing and once again Hermione felt a surge of anger at the terrible wrongness of his upbringing. What could he have been?

Still, those were thoughts better not thought and what was done was done.

At last though, the potion wore off and Algie Longbottom stood as himself again, wincing in pain. She'd tidied the room while they were speaking (neither of the boys had helped, as usual) so it was ready to go back to its previous existence as a store room.

"Well, that's that then," she said.

"Thanks for everything. See you at lunch!" and Longbottom was gone. She turned to Riddle, who'd gone quiet.

"See you later Riddle. I'm off."

"Stay a moment?" he asked, but it sounded more like an order. His face was blank, giving nothing away. Shuttered and so like himself.

She paused and considered it. _He's obsessed with your secrets._ Bad idea. "Sorry, I've got to meet Marcus for lunch. I'm already late."

"Why are you afraid of me?" he asked, as she reached the door and she froze.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, her back to him.

"The first time we ever met, you were afraid of me. Last week, I pulled you into a classroom and you weren't surprised but you were scared. Why? I have done nothing to inspire fear in you."

He sounded awkward rather than conniving, but that didn't mean he _felt_ awkward. She considered her reply as she turned around.

"I am not afraid of you. I just don't believe in your perfect Head Boy act, that's all. You made me jump on the train because I'm not used to people! I grew up in a lonely castle with an elf and my father for company. I can't believe you even remember that."

"Well I don't believe in your fairytale, so where does that leave us?"

"In a mutual agreement to leave each other alone? I don't like you, you don't like me. Let's just move on."

But that wasn't what Dumbledore wanted was it? Hermione felt torn in two, between running away from this lonely, dark eyed man who exuded wrongness and going to him and trying to show him that there was more to life than power. She couldn't fix him - _didn't_ - so the endeavour would be worthless, and yet she suddenly wanted to very badly.

"I like conversing with you," he said after a moment. "I would like to continue that. You are quite stimulating to discuss academic matters with." His voice was clipped and almost expressionless but there was something beneath it, something in the tension in his face that sent a shiver down her spine. He almost sounded... _needy. _And good lord, that was the most uncomfortable thought she'd ever had.

_I do like you, Hermione and I'll let you keep your secrets, but you're a fool to think Tom isn't obsessed with them and with you... _Was Sophia right?

"I just don't think it's a good idea, Riddle. Look, I've got to go. Sorry." Her heart was _racing_. She should never have let him in at all, however fun he was to talk to, and however gutting it was to lose the one person her age who'd ever challenged her intellectually.

"I don't accept that. There's something about you that intrigues me, Dearborn, and I am going to find out what it is."

And then he pushed past her and was gone, striding up the corridor without a backward glance. He'd sounded _furious_ underneath his controlled icy tone and she started to wonder if she really should be afraid of him on a personal level, in this life as Hermione Dearborn. Would she always be a target for Voldemort? And, if so, why hadn't he attacked her already? Was her proximity to Dumbledore keeping her safe? And why did he have to be so _ambiguous. Something intriguing_. What on earth?

.

.

Tom was in a foul mood. The conversation had not gone as planned. He'd intended to begin to seduce her secrets out of her, and he hadn't been able to. He had _always_ been able to turn on the charm but she did something to him, made him act like an idiot. She made him feel like the awkward orphan boy he had worked so hard to leave behind.

And he didn't quite understand why, but there was something about Hermione Dearborn that confused him so much, made him so angry it had him hurling curses at a wall. It was pathetic and there he was in Slytherin's Chamber, alone, blowing off steam. It was a risk to come here after the unfortunate outcome of his experiments in fifth year, but he hadn't been able to resist today. The Chamber always calmed him, reminding him that he was special - a monument to the power he had inherited, a power he meant to surpass.

He'd tortured all her little friends and even tried reading their minds and they knew _nothing _about her of any use. He'd had to be careful to obliviate them without them noticing they'd lost time and in a way he was really proud of the work he'd done there. No one even suspected, even that floozy Ancha, who he'd actually pretended to be helping up after she'd fallen and hurt her head and she'd just thanked him profusely and gone on her way. The others hadn't even remembered his presence in the vicinity, and it had worked gloriously well except that they _didn't_ _know anything._

And they were all so amazingly stupid - _everyone_ was so stupid. They hadn't wondered about her, or seen anything weird about her situation.

He tried to imagine what it was like to live in their little minds. It must be so _boring_. They walked around like mindless ants, never noticing half the things that went on, accepting the limitations of anything they were given or told. They never tried to push the boundaries, never tried to think or see or say anything new. They were born with the extraordinary gift of magic and they did nothing special with it, just wandered through life interested in all the unimportant matters, like their pathetic love lives, without ever really thinking or seeing.

Except _her_. That Salazar-damned girl with her quick mind and her impeccable spell-work, unafraid to be challenged, unafraid to challenge. Most of the time. She _was_ different and he didn't know why, but she was fascinating, and yet she was still pretending to be ordinary. Running around with that _complete_ sap...

He blasted a column and felt some slight satisfaction as it came crumbling down, only to be rebuilt with a flick of his wand. He was extraordinary. He was so much more powerful than _anyone _in the castle, except - maybe - that fool Dumbledore. The high ceiling of the Chamber's ante-hall, the statue that lead to so many secrets, secrets that only he would ever be privy to.

What did it matter if the Dearborn girl didn't make sense to him? She was altogether... too much of everything and it was frustrating. She wasn't an ant. He didn't know what she was. He blasted a whole row of columns and thrilled in the godlike power he had to destroy and recreate in moments.

"My Lord?"

"Avery. You are _late_."

The boy dropped to his knees, head bowed in submission, accepting the curse that hit him. Avery was boring, boring, boring but at least the way his screams echoed around the Chamber were not boring. It was, Tom reflected, acoustically a wonderful place for torture. He wondered what Hermione Dearborn sounded like when she screamed. He wished he could risk finding out; surely even she would spill everything under torture - everyone did in the end - but she was too close to Dumbledore and he was convinced the old man was a Legilimens. Probably more adept than he himself at present, loathe as he was to admit that even privately. Although he had Dumbledore to thank for discovering that it was even possible. His stupid trick with the things hidden in wardrobe all those years ago had set his mind thinking and he'd realised that the man must have read his mind. Hatred for Dumbledore freshened the Cruciatus and Avery's screams hit a new pitch.

He lifted the curse, feeling quite a bit better.

"What have you got to report?"

"My Lord. The Halloween party, as you requested..."

.

.

Lunch with Marcus was more enjoyable than Hermione had anticipated. He'd written to her on the parchment she'd given to him during whatever he had (she ought to know but didn't) while she was in Arithmancy that morning, saying,

_I've been a prat. Pick you up at the top of the dungeon stairs for lunch after your Potions lesson? _

The message had sent a smile singing across her face, surprising herself.

_See you there. Finally going to be done with the bloody potion!_

And there he'd been, sitting on the stairs waiting for her, smiling when he saw her with those soft, warm eyes, brown curls swept into a side-parting, the light smattering of freckles making her want to count them. He'd taken her bag and kissed her cheek and it she had _revelled_ in the wonderful normalcy of it. She had never had a proper school romance, where you could sit obnoxiously gooey at meals together and be walked to classes and read together in the Common Room and find hidden places to snog.

"And _then _he took my broom away for a whole month! It was horrible, stop laughing!" he said, but he was grinning too, after recounting a story of trying to fly a toy broomstick to his cousin's house aged eight and ending up falling in a pond on their estate instead.

"My brother told me it would be fine, how was I supposed to know they ran out of power that quickly?" he protested when she didn't stop laughing. "Come on, I don't want pudding, do you?"

"No, but I need to get my books for this afternoon from the Tower and then go to the Library. Walk me?" _Walk me?_ She was turning into such a little girlfriend, it was completely ludicrous. Very in-character, a snide voice commented in the back of her head, but she ignored it, and accepted his hand in hers.

"Of course, but let's skip the library?"

They ended up kissing - shy, tentative kisses - on her sofa instead, and even she, queen of all bookworms, thought it was a bit of an upgrade. And if he quietened her worries about Riddle, well that was just an advantage.

.

.

Guilt was a hard emotion to push away. It crept up on her at night, when she lay alone in her little tower room, fighting sleep because she was too scared to dream, but desperate to get away from the loneliness that seeped into the very marrow of her bones and made her soul ache. Loneliness and guilt and a growing sense of abandonment because _damnit_ why was it always her that got the thankless job, that made the unknown sacrifices.

Guilt because Ron's face was fading and Harry's wasn't and it had barely been three months. Guilt because half of her knew that she was playing at being a normal girl dating a normal boy, because Marcus said and did all the right things, all the silly girly things she'd secretly wished Ron would do but he didn't fill that other need, the need that made her blush because it wasn't _logical_. And guilt because she was starting to wonder if she had ever really been in love with the red-headed boy, because in retrospect it had _always _been Harry first for her, a love that went beyond familial or romantic. She would have died for him and gladly, if she'd needed to and that was a truth. And if he had wanted her and not Ginny she would have said yes and she had never _known_, never realised. She'd been a fool. They had grown together in that tent and sometimes she'd wondered... but there had been so much else at stake and she had felt like her path had been written for her, maybe written by someone who didn't understand her truly because now she was beginning to think she would have been miserable

And guilt because Tom reminded her of Harry, sometimes. She hadn't realised until that day, and it made her sick to her stomach, sick with longing and sick with loneliness and she would have given anything to be back in that miserable tent because even the seemingly endless hunt for the Horcruxes had been simpler than this new and strange life, a life she walked through as a another person and had to wonder how much of Hermione Granger had been defined by other people's images of her.

It felt like she was in mourning for the person she had been, and eventually she cried herself to sleep as the dawn light broke over Hogwarts.

.

* * *

><p>Sorry it's been so long... no excuse to give. Thank you for the really lovely reviews. Especially to WhenasInSilks whose review prompted me to get on and post this chapter.<p> 


	14. I rise

So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then, of course, he came.

— Albus Dumbledore

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

— Maya Angelou

* * *

><p>Albus sat by the window in his private quarters trying to read the new edition of <em>Transfiguration Quarterly<em>, an unlit fire at his back doing nothing to temper the chill drafts_. _He was finding concentrating on the publication more difficult than usual (despite some unusually fine contributions, including one of his own).

He was thinking, as he so often did, of his sister. The Forbidden Forest was dotted through with the browns and golds of the scattered autumn-turned deciduous trees, standing out against the dark, dull green of the pines. Ariana's hair had been an autumn red-brown, darker than his own. He sighed, heavy with regret. If Ariana had been autumn-haired and grey eyed (and how ghastly blank had her eyes been lying there) then _he_ had been spring and summer, with hair like ripe wheat and fierce summer blue eyes and soft, warm lips that belied their cruel twist.

Hallowe'en, as they called it now but which had always been called Samhain in traditional wizarding families, was the night in which the souls of the dead were said to visit their former homes. It was a singularly uncomfortable thought, and every year on this day he was beset by fresh waves of regret over the terrible events all those years ago. Had it truly been forty-five years? He had been preoccupied with that time a great deal since he had looked on Gellert again, no longer a beautiful youth but a man ravaged with his own cruelty, but fewer of his thoughts had been trained on Ariana than on the man that had turned his life, heart, soul inside out and upside down until he had not known himself.

He was being quite unacceptably self-indulgent and stood, knees protesting at the sudden movement, to prepare the hearth. How long had he been sitting in the cold?

Hermione would be arriving soon for her lesson. She always brought a warmth with her; even when she was trying her very best to restrain her fire she was as unsuccessful as she was at containing her unruly hair. He was becoming genuinely fond of the young woman: her courage and composure under what he imagined were stressful circumstances were quite extraordinary.

He did wonder why she was keeping Tom Riddle at arm's length. Was there something in the boy that made her fear him? Albus knew of no one else who mistrusted Riddle, and he longed to ask Hermione outright why, to look into her mind and find out what if there _was_ truly something to fear in the pale, dark eyed boy with the beautiful face and hidden motivations. What secrets did she hold the key to? The temptation flared up, but he pushed it away. Nothing good could come of such an action.

He had hoped that asking Horace to pair them up would lead to more information and he had hinted so much to the girl, but so far it had yielded nothing. He wondered if he should speak to the girl more directly. She was strong, and he had never seen Tom so interested in one of his peers before - however hard the boy tried to hide it. In an odd way, he pitied the boy. He was clearly very intrigued by, and probably attracted to, Hermione, but Albus wondered if Tom would ever recognise that. Insofar as the Professor was aware Tom had never been romantically linked to anyone at Hogwarts before. Perhaps his upbringing, so starved of affection (how Albus shuddered at the memory of that dreadful Muggle institution) rendered him incapable of recognising or acting upon such things?

Still, it seemed too good an opportunity to waste - he didn't expect her interest in Marcus Blishwick to last for much longer. He would wait for the opportune moment and then broach the subject with her. She was old enough, and experienced enough (from what he guessed) with difficult circumstances - and didn't that make his ageing shrivelled heart sink with fear - to cope with a small assignment and spend a few months getting close to Riddle and delving into his secrets.

Yes. She was not like he had been at the same age - where he had been drawn by Gellert, Hermione seemed very wary of Tom Riddle and surely that proved her suitability for the task? She would not - like he had - make all the wrong choices. He was sure of it.

.

Hermione arrived for her lesson with Professor Dumbledore five minutes before she was due, as usual. She liked to be early. Late people, in her opinion, were both unproductive and rude. She'd spent the morning finishing the (quite frankly infuriating) _Wuthering Heights_ and it had put her in a dark mood. Why, she wondered, would anyone bother writing a novel about two such ridiculous people? Did _anyone_ ever feel anything like that - especially for someone else who was quite clearly an awful person! She had decided that she either completely didn't understand that sort of overblown Victorian aesthetic (and indeed, she had always disliked the Pre-Raphaelite paintings as well) or the book was just awful.

Still, each to their own. _My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Healthcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. _

It was just so _illogical_. How could any one person be assumed to feel so much? Even love was not that irrational. And surely if you loved someone that much you would just be with them? She couldn't understand it. It was anathema to her ordered mind. She had been in love, after-all, and it hadn't been anything like as... as melodramatic.

That had taught her to read melodramas anyway. She would avoid them in the future. Even in this strange and lonely place, she was still - somewhere, surely - the daughter of two sensible, modern dentists and didn't have time for such silliness.

She was still Hermione Granger.

Even in 1944.

She knocked politely, as she always did, the anticipation of learning something genuinely interesting overcoming her irritation. The door swung open of its own accord, and she was surprised to see Professor Dumbledore sitting by the fire, with the curtains drawn over the windows.

"Hermione, come in and have a seat my dear," he said, rising politely. "Would you like a drink? It is perhaps a little early, but it is Hallowe'en."

"Thank you," she replied, nodding. They often sat and had a drink - sometimes a glass of Elfin Wine, or a hot chocolate - but usually _after_ the lesson.

He handed her a simply enormous Firewhiskey, and she stared in slight surprise. Her Professor (and perhaps even friend, almost, in a way, if that was not too daring) looked, to say the least, somewhat the worse for wear. There were purple shadows underneath his blue eyes, and nary a twinkle in sight. She hadn't seen him look so drawn and pale since the night she had arrived in the past.

"Is everything quite alright Albus?" she asked cautiously, accepting the glass. His first name never tripped easily off her tongue, but he insisted.

He sighed and paused for a moment, as though mulling over his answer.

"They say that on Samhain the souls of the dead may return to our world, to their homes in fact. What do you think of this?"

Her immediate reaction was _don't be silly_, but she swallowed it. Afterall, did not ghosts walk the Hogwarts halls? And Harry, Harry who had died and come back to life because of a man's fractured soul, had spoken to _this_ man after he had died. Spoken (he had confided only to herself and Ron and perhaps Ginny) of things he could never have known if the conversation hadn't actually occurred...

"Perhaps," she said eventually. "Or perhaps it was a way in which Muggles could explain the presence of ghosts?"

"Muggles cannot see ghosts," he replied.

"Some say they can." This was something she would have rejected but for the evidence of her own eyes. She thought of _Wuthering Heights_ again, and felt an uncomfortable chill creep down her back. What was it? Her photographic memory provided the answer:

_Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!_

"I think," she added, uncertain, and for the first time thoroughly glad Ron and Harry couldn't hear her, "I think perhaps it is true. For some. Perhaps there is some magic that allows the dead to touch the world of the living. I don't know. Or perhaps not - perhaps they are very far away. Muggle Christianity would have them in 'a better place' but someone very wise once said that death is but the next great adventure. Afterall, some do choose to linger on here, and some choose to go on - perhaps there are those that hover between those decisions?"

Xenophilius Lovegood could eat his hideous collection of hats, she thought uncharitably. And then she realised that Hermione Granger would never have said what she had said, and was struck with a odd pang off grief that tempered the triumph.

"My sister, Ariana, died forty-five years ago. It is hard not to wonder, today."

Wonder, what? she wondered. But she didn't ask, because she knew, really, knew that he was wondering if his spell had killed his sister, and if it had not was he not still to blame regardless?

Instead of a platitude she leant over and rested her hand on his for a moment. It was an action that would have been beyond her daring not long before, but it seemed only natural now. His grief, which seemed so fresh, terrified her: she had longer than that to wait before she would see her own loved ones again, before she could take back her life. Would she be haunted by them for the next five decades, trapped into bouts of grief, unable to move on and create a life? And if she wasn't, if she did move on, was that not just as terrifying?_  
><em>

"Would you like me to leave you alone?" she asked, wishing she had stayed in her tower bedroom, curled up on her sofa with a hot chocolate instead of staring down half a century of dark loneliness.

"No, child. I have had quite enough solitary contemplation for one day. Here, you will enjoy this article in _Transfiguration Quarterly_ - it draws a great deal on Cerdic's work."

He handed her the magazine and stood to draw back the curtains, remarking that the room had been so cold earlier he had drawn them. She didn't believe his reason, but took the magazine. While she read, he marked essays until she had finished reading the article he had marked out, and then they sat and discussed the afternoon away, determinedly sticking to theory, until it grew dark*.

.

"It is Samhain now, Hermione," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the darkened sky, his blue eyes serious. "Are you going to light a fire?"

Yes, she thought. Yes I will yes. What better night for sacrifices and the creation of fire?

"Here?"

"No. We should be outside. Come."

He lead her in silence, through the halls and down the moving staircases, past doors to the Great Hall, and out of the castle into the dark grounds, passing the Hufflepuff Quidditch team returning from a late practice (they always had the worst slots). Hermione eyed their thick winter cloaks enviously; the wintery wind was biting through her best warming charm and with only a nod to Diggory she followed Dumbledore, whose swift stride had a mark of urgency about it.

She hoped they didn't go too far: the Hallowe'en Feast was later than the normal suppertime, and she was suddenly hungry as well as cold and not a little scared.

What if she couldn't do it? she wondered. And what else could she give that she hadn't already? What act of goodness was there, here, in this place? This had always been Harry's sort of thing, he was the hero after-all and she had never wanted to be a hero (and thought it not a very sensible or indeed pragmatic occupation, to be honest. You ended up doing stupid things like hanging about to save people's sisters from a death-by-drowning that wasn't actually a real threat and dying and being generally hard-done-by). She hadn't even got herself into this mess...

And yet it was _Gubraithan Fire. _A fire so pure and good that it would burn eternally. Or did it? She wondered if it could just be very long lasting fire - how could anything be said to be eternal until after whatever end there was had happened? Shaking off that philosophical trough of horror as she stumbled over a rock, she recast her warming charm and then hurried on after the Professor. _  
><em>

They walked on and on, lit by wand light, following a path along the edge of the forest as it rose up gradually at first and then climbed all of a sudden steep to the mountains. She looked back, and saw the dark outline of the castle against the dark grey clouds, the lit windows marking its position more clearly but doing nothing to make it seem homely and friendly. They were higher than she'd thought, a deceptive curve of the landscape bringing them to the top of a steep but small cliff-face, and then the were walking down again and when she looked back the castle was out of sight.

At last he stopped, well out of sight of the castle, in a tiny, steep glen, with a swift stream rushing through, down to the lake, about half an hour north from Hogwarts.

"Choose a branch, Hermione."

It was so dark, and her lumos could only do so much, but she found a twisted and weathered branch of some hard wood that seemed as good as any.

He laid it on the ground, and took a seat on the damp rocks a few meters away, extinguishing his wand's light so that he vanished into the shadows. It was quite unusual for him to be so silent and uninstructive, so she took a deep breath and thought about all the lessons she'd had, and sent four small fires burning together, tightly controlled, around the glen. One blue, one red, one purple and one of dancing multicoloured flames that sent off such a great heat it almost banished the clammy chill. Focussing on the magic to clear her mind, she felt the essence of the fire (Luna would have a field day if she ever got to tell her about this, she thought, and the quashed the intrusion of her past-future and all its associated heartbreak to focus on the task at hand). She extinguished the fires, immediately regretting the loss of their warmth and looked towards the dark hollow where Albus sat.

What was she supposed to do? He'd said that it had to come from within you in her last lesson. So, she had to, what, go inside herself?

Hermione turned her back on the Professor and gazed at the outline of the darker mountains against the dark sky and tried to allow herself to just feel for a moment, to gather herself. Initially, she felt awkward and a bit self-conscious, but it faded as she concentrated on everything she was repressing and at last a rage rose up in her like a great wind until she was shaking with it and with the cold breeze whipping down the slope from the north, and somewhere in her she released the horrible _anger_ she felt at she position she'd been thrown into, and a furious surge of loss and hopelessness came with it, bursting up through her until the tears streamed down her face and fire began to stream from her wand - uncontrolled, angry fire that could easily turn to Fiendfyre she realised and pulled herself together, grabbing at her jagged breath until it evened and the fire stopped pouring. What had Albus said?

_A sign of hope in dark times... it requires a great sacrifice from the caster... it is a gift to give warmth and light to the darkest places while consuming nothing in return. _

What _could_ she give? There was nothing she had left to lose now, and so could she not give everything? And the rage of injustice became a rage against the petty evils she saw on a daily basis, the small acts of cruelty that separated Muggleborns from Wizarding-born and cast them out as something lesser; rage against a society that had never considered progress, or democracy, or equality. Rage at a dark, wild-haired woman who had chosen her first because she mattered least, who had heedlessly spent hours torturing and humiliating Hermione into repeated unconsciousness, a woman whose face still haunted her sleep and who had hardened something deep within her forever, whose face had stared back at her own from a mirror only days afterwards.

Against the future Ministry, that would stand by and do nothing while its subjects were killed and imprisoned, against the conditions of society that allowed a man like Voldemort to rise up, to try to kill a one-year old boy, at a school that taught Magic without ethics, that taught you to create and destroy but not to judge, against a pale-haired boy that had sneered and called her Mudblood and the father who had formed him, against a world that rejected _everything_ about the one she had come from without knowing anything about it, against every witch and wizard that stood by and didn't comment when they saw a child treated as an outcast because of their birth, rage at a house that would torture its own for losing a Quidditch match. Rage at a teacher that would reject an orphaned child as untrustworthy, at a world that damned everything it didn't recognise.

Rage that she had been cast back and rendered impotent; that all the future wrongs she had lived through and heard of could not be altered or righted, that anyone could be so cruel as to send her here and oh how she hated Albus Dumbledore for that, for sending her away from everything she knew and loved and the life she had fought for and nearly died for again and again, a life that had been _ripped away from her_ for ever and ever because she had seen in that same man's face only that day that forty-five years didn't change the love but they changed _you _and everything you were and nothing nothing would ever be the same. She would never be the same, she was lost and changed and irrevocably altered. _  
><em>

She felt until she sobbed, and promised the dark and faceless and ungrateful Mountains that she _would_ survive until she could change those things. That she would watch and wait and work against that society until it crumbled to confusion in her past and its future when Harry Potter destroyed the pale faced boy in the castle long after that boy had destroyed himself and all he could have been.

Napoleon stepped in at the ruins of a revolution, a country racked by wars, and rebuilt a Empire in his own image. She would do the same and until then she would wait and plan and learn. She would let Tom Riddle bring the world to its knees because she had no other choice, because it had always happened, but she would seize the opportunity he would leave behind him to rebuild the world anew.

Hermione promised everything in herself to the fire, holding her wand out, no longer desperate but aware and deliberate, and her magic flared up in response and rushed through her, raw and uncompromising and agonising, until the branch burst into flame, warm and golden and gently burning in the cold dark night. She sank to her knees, exhausted, too overcome to revel in its extraordinary glow.

* * *

><p>*sundown in the Highlands is about 5pm at this time of year. Probably just before if you're on the east side of a mountain (Hogwarts probably faces southsouth west over the lake, so it would get a decent sunset. We've seen what's there in the books but JK doesn't ever take us out into the mountains _behind_ the castle and my scottish mind can't not imagine that, so here are Hermione and Dumbledore casting ancient spells on a Gaelic holiday

The title of this chapter draws on a poem by Maya Angelou. All her work is just as important now as it has ever been and which everyone who hasn't read should go and buy immediately. I'm not going to quote her again directly, because I think quoting that particular poem in this context would be cultural appropriation and, just, tbh unforgivably insulting, so go and read her work. Seriously. Read it. Starting with _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings._

I thought the events in this chapter would happen later, when I planned out the story in my head, but it felt right to have it now.

Sorry there was no Tom action, but don't forget that he's been planning _something_ for Hallowe'en and it's still early evening. I'll probably do a second chapter on Hallowe'en but I didn't want to draw this one out too much and to be honest it was quite hard to write. I hope it made sense.

I'd like to thank you all for the amazing support I've had for this story - especially for my characterisation of Hermione - I'd have stopped a long time ago but, yeah, this is for all of you. And a special thank-you to WhenasInSilks (again) for being amazing (again) and helping me with this chapter.


	15. XV

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.

The last stragglers were heading to the Great Hall when Hermione returned to Ravenclaw tower. She was going to be late to the Halloween feast, and she was so tired it was tempting to miss it. But, no, adrenaline was pumping through her now, forcing out the emotional exhaustion that had swept over her after the branch had begun to burn and she ran up the stairs.

_Gubraithan fire_. She tingled from the secret, amazing, unbelievable knowledge of it. It made her inner swot rejoice. All those years of coming top in exams couldn't even _compare_….

But – the feast. It would be strange to miss it. She pushed open the door to her room and hurriedly pulled out a set of dress robes. Sage green velvet. That would do.

She pulled them on, gasping as the corseting spell tightened around her, still out of breath from running up the myriad staircases to her room. Catching sight of her face in the mirror, Hermione winced. Her hair was wild and windswept and she knew from long experience there was little she could do about that now. It was always wilder when she'd been doing something especially magical and tonight, well tonight had been beyond anything before. She found a silver hair clasp from the box of jewellery Cerdic had given her and made an attempt at respectability, pulling half of it away from her face. There was nothing much she could do about her flushed cheeks so with a cursory glance she hurried off to the hall.

Hermione wasn't given to really analysing her looks, and so she swept out of her room unaware that those who'd known her before would have found it hard to reconcile the elegant young woman (clad in traditional dress, thick dark hair pinned back with goblin-wrought silver, dusky green robes setting off both her small waist and her warm skin, dark eyes bright with excitement) with the plain bookworm she'd been as a child, or even the fierce sidekick in her Muggle jeans. Even the way she carried herself had changed – poised, upright. Powerful. Aristocratic.

It hadn't taken so very long for her disguise to become normality – but so much for not needing to be the best or blending in or any of her ridiculous attempts to go unnoticed.

.

Late and flustered as she was, Hermione couldn't miss the tension in the Great Hall that night. Thick dark clouds still obscured the stars, billowing across the ceiling in testament to a wind they couldn't feel. The ghosts were clustered more thickly tonight, glowing silver in the dimly lit hall, reflecting the flickering light of the black candles floating above the tables. Hermione was suddenly reminded of the significance of this particular evening for herself. _At Samhain_, her flawless recall of the written word offered, _time loses all meaning and the past, present, and future are one. The dead and denizens of the Other World walk among the living. _

And those words reminded her something Harry had told her. She met Tom Riddle's dark and inscrutable eyes as she walked towards the Ravenclaw table. He was impeccably clad in dark green robes…

_Lord Voldemort is my past, present, and future._

She shuddered.

"You're awfully late," Anya muttered, shifting down the bench to let Hermione in between her and Sophia. "Everything alright?"

The girl looked lovely, royal blue silk setting off her shining dark hair, a gold and dragonstone choker wrapped around her throat. It was oddly thrilling to see everyone dressed so richly, as though they were at a medieval feast. She half-expected a green giant to ride in and cut his own head off, then reprimanded herself for being so fanciful. Wrong holiday anyway.

"Yes, my lesson with Albus overran. What have I missed?"

"Nothing much. This farce of a festival should be over soon with any luck." Sophia this time, with real bitterness in her voice.

Hermione didn't reply, her mind racing. This might be something she was expected to _get_ – some Pureblood tradition she'd missed. Loading up her plate to avoid answering she scanned the hall.

Muggleborns and a few half-bloods sitting grouped further down the table. That wasn't totally abnormal but the separation seemed more pronounced than usual. Oddly, though, they were more relaxed than everyone else.

As usual she'd sat facing the Slytherin table. _Stupid_, she thought, but refused to dwell on it. There were dark looks on their faces too.

"I mean, it's not as though our traditions are particularly barbaric. But to not even have a single sacrifice – not even a fire. They could just let us go home to celebrate instead. It's ludicrous. I'd rather not mark it than have this tame Mugglised feast," Anya agreed talking across Hermione.

"At least we get to go home for Yule. Imagine missing that." Marcus this time, one up and across the table, warm dark eyes meeting hers. She hadn't noticed him before, and guiltily she sent her sweetest smile.

Claire, sitting next to him, kept her eyes cast down.

"When did the school stop celebrating Samhain properly?" Hermione asked, her quick mind supplying the missing pieces.

She'd never thought it odd that the Wizarding world celebrated holidays that coincided with her own upbringing before. It hadn't been mentioned in Hogwarts, A History and Professor Binns hadn't ever bothered with anything like that, preferring to wade through the minute details of centuries-past Goblin rebellions (to ensure continued mistrust, perhaps?) rather than teach them anything useful.

Even Malfoy hadn't brought this up, to her knowledge, although he'd always been gone in the holidays and it wasn't like she was on great terms with any traditional Purebloods in her own time to have heard them moan about it.

She'd read about the traditional celebrations, of course, but the books had made them seem ancient history, something that had faded out centuries before.

Not traditions that were very much alive, traditions ripped away from the people she'd come to think of as friends.

Suddenly it didn't sit right that Muggle Christian holidays should have replaced Wizarding traditions unless organically.

"About ten years ago, I think. They used to have a proper hazelwood fire, sacrifice an Augurey, dance a bit, honour the ghosts. You know what it's like. It's illegal now. We still do it, of course." Sophia's slate grey robes matched her eyes. She looked regal and forbidding.

"We never really bothered at home - Cerdic doesn't usually know what date it is anyway. But I did think it was odd people were calling this the _Hallowe'en_ feast. I just didn't like to ask… sometimes I feel like I missed so much."

The lies sprang so easily to her tongue these days it scared her. It wasn't a lie, though, to say she felt like she'd missed out on so many Wizarding things. She had, in some ways. She'd never seen a true Samhain or Beltane celebration, hadn't spent her childhood learning to fly and stealing her parents' wands to practice magic surreptiously. She'd grown up knowing she was different and wrong. Grown up not fitting but never knowing why, grown up crying helpless tears because she had no friends…

But, she'd also grown up with loving, normal parents. Parents she'd practically deserted because The Burrow and its inhabitants, even school itself, had just been so much more exciting and because even at eleven she'd known that she had magic and they didn't and they'd never really understand what that meant.

Parents whose free will she'd stolen, who no longer trusted their only daughter. Who looked at her with a fear they tried very hard to hide.

"Well, next year you should come to mine dearest. And, Hermione, we know you had an unconventional upbringing so don't be so proud about it." Sophia was smiling for the first time since she'd sat at the table and Hermione just nodded at her, trying to hide a flash of amusement that _not _dancing around a fire while you sacrificed an omen of death was considered unconventional.

She caught Tom Riddle's eyes again and told herself she hadn't been looking for him. His face was completely impassive, but around him the Slytherins had ugly, excited looks and she had a Harry style leap of intuition. Trouble, her senses told her and she agreed. Trouble brewing.

_It looked as if night of dark intent _

_Was coming and not only a night, an age._

"Hag's get look at that," Anya muttered, staring up the table.

It was unlike her to swear, so Hermione followed her gaze down the table, past the array of coloured velvets and silks, to what even she subconsciously thought of as the Muggleborn section. If the loss of Wizarding traditions didn't sit well with her, the unspoken apartheid was far more disturbing.

The Muggleborn prefect she'd met on the train coming up, but whose name shamefully escaped her in that moment, was standing on the bench. She wasn't wearing dress robes, but a plain Muggle knee-length skirt and blouse. That was an extremely radical choice, and as she dropped what looked like robes onto the floor Hermione realised she'd just taken them off to reveal her Muggle outfit.

She was caught in between horror at the public spectacle – and wasn't that unlike her – and admiration for the girl's bravery.

The hall had fallen totally silent by this point and Hermione could hear what she was saying.

"… it's disgusting. I've had enough – you shouldn't be allowed to treat people like this." She wasn't looking at the Slytherin table, though. She was looking right at where Hermione was sitting and then she wasn't on the bench she was standing in front of Hermione and it was so _confusing_ and what was she saying?

"People like YOU! EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY BECAUSE I CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS…" screeching right in her face and Hermione didn't understand because she'd barely said a word to this girl since the train and even then she'd been nothing but _polite_ and –

"Pure blood supremacists like you should rot in God's darkest hell –" the girl screamed – and why could she still not remember her name, if she could only say the girl's name maybe she'd calm down, realise that Hermione wasn't the enemy – and was that a knife she was holding?

"I _hate you _for everything you've done to me Hermione Dearborn. I hate you and all your kind. Here's to your ghastly Samhain."

And then she pulled the knife across her own throat and fell to the floor, twitching for a moment and then still and quite, utterly dead, her own blood pooling around her on the stone.

It had happened so quickly, had been hardly twenty seconds and it was just so odd – she'd seen people die before, far too many really, but this just made no sense and what had the girl said? She'd blamed her and then, what killed herself? It was so strange, and there was screams around her - was this another nightmare or -

The girl's blood was hot, soaking through her dress where it had splattered. She brushed her sleeve across her face and it came away warm and wet.

Stomach clenched in horror, Hermione looked up and met first Claire's shocked eyes and then, past her, over her shoulder, she saw Tom Riddle walking towards her and everything seemed to be in slow motion and then he was bending beside the dead girl _what was her fucking name _and shaking his head and then he was beside her, arm around her shoulders, and so was Dumbledore and the man was frowning and Tom was saying something in a low, urgent voice and Sophia was standing gesturing and so was Marcus

_Hermione's never even met her I don't think -_

_Don't understand -_

_ - Ridiculous -_

_- Should be in her room I'll take her _

And then time caught up with itself and she realised that the hall was practically empty, the girl's body obscured by teachers and that she was clutching onto the man who'd probably orchestrated the whole thing. She dropped his arm quickly.

"Albus," she said quietly and they all silenced. "I'm fine. I didn't know that girl and I'm horrified to think I could have done anything to cause –" she gestured " – that. I don't… I can't even remember her name. I only spoke to her once, I think. On the train. I don't understand?"

"I think you should go to Devon tonight," he said firmly. "Jingo will take you."

"No, that would – I'll stay here. I'm fine, really. Thank you. You are probably needed elsewhere. Sophia will take me back to Ravenclaw."

She needed to sleep, although she wasn't sure she ever would again. She was so numb.

"Miss Rosier, if a house-elf should appear with a bottle of Firewhiskey, please accept it and do with it as you see fit," he said after a moment and then touched Hermione's arm gently before joining the Headmaster and teachers.

Tom Riddle was still standing next to her. She wondered why but she was just so tired… and the girl's blood was all down her robes, the red already turning dark against the green. She would burn them.

Why had he done it? _Had _he done it? Or had she done something – could she had prevented this?

Marcus had gone, she saw. That was odd. She must have missed something. The Hall was empty now except for the teachers and the dead girl

"Mabel. Her name was Mabel. I met her on the train. She was kind to me." Hermione said softly and suddenly there were tears streaming down her face.

"Did you do this?" she whispered very quietly up to Tom as Sophia took her hand and tried to lead her away.

He just frowned down at her, face unreadable. He looked almost confused. It wasn't an expression she'd seen before on that marble face, so she left.

She'd worry about it tomorrow when Mabel Jefferies' blood wasn't splashed down her front. When she didn't feel like she was going to vomit and oh it looked as though someone already had, by the Hufflepuff table of course, and after she'd slept. If she slept.

.

.

She did.

She'd barely been in bed a moment before sleep overtook her and when she dreamt it was Bellatrix's face staring back at her in a fiery mirror. She dreamt of rubies the colour of fresh blood around a pale throat, of being burnt alive as a sacrifice to an old god whose name she didn't know. Of hot blood freezing on skin like ice.

She dreamt of a different kind of fire too, a pure and warm fire. She dreamt of twisting webs pulling around her, pulling her closer to a dark and cold pit where no fire could burn and when she woke she remembered nothing.

.

.

She forced herself to go to breakfast the next morning. It was a Sunday but she pulled on her black school robes anyway. The Hall was less subdued than she was expecting, less than when Cedric had died, but when she walked in everyone fell silent.

He'd marked her, she supposed. Was that why he'd done it?

Dumbledore's own goddaughter, she thought suddenly. A blood supremacist.

Was that it? Or was she going mad? Had that girl – _Mabel _– thought they'd become friends on the train? Now she thought back the girl had smiled at her a few times but it had been early on when she'd been trying to desperately hard to be forgettable and she'd avoided the smiles, avoided her eye.

Had she done this?

She arrived at the Ravenclaw table and Sophia wasn't there and she froze because no one looked up to greet her – did they hate her, think she was cold and cruel - they _should -_ but – no, there was Anya, patting the seat next to her.

"Hermione! I was going to bring you a tray. You look better! Juice?"

Marcus came in moments later and dropped a kiss onto her head.

"I thought you'd be in your room." He squeezed her hand gently. "Pass the bacon?"

She sat, quietly shocked, as they breezed past the horror of the night before. She'd expected to be alienated, hated but this was somehow worse.

As though it hadn't _mattered. _

Only Claire avoided her gaze, but she'd been doing that so much lately Hermione couldn't tell if it was because Claire believed she was a blood supremacist or not.

Everyone was pale and a little quieter than usual but… it felt off somehow. Surely _someone_ should look more upset.

She replayed it in her mind. She'd just sat there, she thought angrily. She could have easily disarmed the girl but she'd just sat there and let her cut her own throat.

And so had everyone else.

"Are you alright?" Marcus whispered.

"I should have stopped her," Hermione replied. "I – I just should have stopped her."

"None of us did anything. Don't dwell on it – it was just a horrible thing, but she was obviously quite mad." He shrugged as though to say _what can you do_.

"Excuse me. I'm not hungry after all."

"We're going for a walk around the lake later. Shall I come and find you?" he asked, oblivious.

"No," she said. "No, I think I'll go to the Library."

.

.

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><p>Like I don't know the Wizarding world seems pretty gothic (I mean if someone at my school was like ok no but guys can you call me Lord Voldemort bc I want to sound badass and also have you met my GIANT SNAKE we'd probably have bullied them out) and this happened. Prizes for spotting the Angel Carter ref.<p>

ALSO I'M REALLY SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG.

**Hag's get** is a swearword I made up – I'm tired of people saying Merlin etc. so inventing some. Get is regency slang for children.

I also set up ! why people might not like Muggles ! a bit ! Because again can you imagine if at school someone was just like no but guys let's just kill all of xxxx type of people and put ourselves in power _you'd say no thanks crazy and move on with your day. _So. Something is rotten in the state of Hogwarts.

Please review?


	16. why, why, why Delilah

_Seeping through the cracks, I'm the poison in your bones_

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><p>He found her in the Library. She wasn't reading, just gazing out of the window, almost hidden in a small nook right at the back of the section dedicated to tomes recording the legal minutiae of Wizarding inheritances through the ages – usually guaranteed to be free of people for days on end. It was one of his favourite spots as well, although not the spot they'd shared earlier that term when she'd read his Transfiguration essay and he'd read hers.<p>

He'd enjoyed that.

That had been the night Hermione had fallen asleep in the potions lab and he'd stolen her book. _Paradise Lost_, he remembered. He still hadn't read it. She'd never been as relaxed around him again.

He sat down opposite her at the small table and just examined her face. She was paler than usual, shadows under her dark eyes. And she was ignoring him, which he hated, still just staring out the window. He studied the soft pink bow of her lips, the sharp curve of her cheekbones, the faint freckles dusting her nose, the way her thick dark hair shone in the dull November light. He wanted to know every inch of her skin, rip it off and look underneath and dive inside and ransack her secrets until she was flayed open beneath him, empty and open and burning hot.

"Why?" she asked eventually, still not looking at him.

"You look like you need a drink," he deflected. He wanted to touch her face, gently push back an unruly strand of hair that had worked its way out of her bun. It was a strange urge and he suppressed it.

She didn't reply to that so he sighed in frustration.

"Hermione let me take you out of here. You don't look well."

She finally looked at him then and the weight of her cool dark eyes was such a relief. She had that strange look she got whenever he said her first name. He couldn't quite fathom it, but he thought he probably liked it.

"I just want to sit here and think," she said quietly and he didn't like that. She wasn't supposed to be so subdued. She was supposed to be crackling fire like she usually was – as she had been the night before.

He might have slightly fucked up the previous night to be honest. The Mudblood dying hadn't exactly been in the plan, but it wasn't necessarily a disaster situation.

"You can walk out or you can suffer the indignity of me levitating you out with a body bind on," he threatened and there was the barest flicker of a smile around her mouth as though she didn't believe him. Or perhaps she didn't care. She didn't seem scared of him today, weirdly enough. Usually she was so tense, as though he were a snake poised to strike – except in those moments she'd got caught up talking to him and lost herself in conversation. _Or when she'd dozed off, lashes a dark bow on her cheek -_ But she always started tense. Today, when she should have been more so, she didn't seem that affected by his presence one way or another.

(_Did you do this _she'd asked him, blood still splattered over her, brown eyes burning with a tenderness he couldn't comprehend, as though she really passionately _cared _that the worthless girl had died, and she'd just walked away answerless, too dazed to notice the cleaning charm he'd cast at her back)

She followed him silently, and he led her out of the castle. He didn't know why he wanted to talk to her, really, except that last night she'd walked into the Hall burning brightly, power radiating off her like heat off a bonfire and then it had gone out like a light and he'd done that and… it just didn't seem right.

The wind caught her oak brown hair up in its grip and he wondered what it felt like. He tried not to wonder what it might feel like to be warmed by the fire that burned inside her.

The lake, he thought. That was a good place to talk, and he turned down towards it but she stopped him.

"This is as far as we're going." Her eyes were brighter now and she'd tensed up. That was better – she looked more like herself.

"In ten feet there's a ledge. We'll sit there."

"Fine."

They sat in silence for a while. The view was as stunning in late Autumn as at any other time of year, the forest stretched out behind the lake bleak and unyielding and vast, the distant mountains blue-purple against the bruised sky. He loved the jagged harshness of the rocks by the lake, the black oblivion of its waters in winter, the endless promise of the forest stretching away into the distance. He loved the space, so different from Muggle London with its dirt and noise and the bombs that fell from the sky these days and the ghastly sordidness of the Orphanage. He could breathe here, he didn't feel as though he filled up every rancid space with his raging thoughts. It was _home_, peopleless and vast and beautiful.

He cast a warming charm when she started shivering. It was a good one, blocking out all but the memory of that lashing highland wind. She didn't thank him, but then he'd hardly expected her to.

"I didn't think she'd die. I thought… I thought you'd stop her."

He hadn't meant to say that. But, oddly, he knew he could trust her. She'd known any way, what harm was there in telling her? He could always deny it. There wasn't any proof anyway.

"I should have. But I didn't. Was it worth it?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know yet. You're here, so perhaps." He hadn't meant to say _that _either. Damn the girl, she did something to him, like he wanted to impress her or – but that was ridiculous.

_You are Lord Voldemort. The Heir of Slytherin, _he told himself. He definitely hadn't killed a Muggleborn to get someone's attention. It had been a Samhain sacrifice, a clever plot.

"I don't understand. Did you want people to hate me? Because they _don't_. They should but they don't. They acted like… like nothing happened. Nothing more than a Mudblood causing a drama, best forgotten."

Actually that was exactly why he'd done it, or at least one of the reasons. He'd watched her too long and often, seen the pity for them in her eyes. She needed to see the truth of this society, away from whatever sheltered haven she'd come from.

Tom's own introduction to the caste system had been his first night at Hogwarts and it had made the petty cruelties of his childhood seem relatively tame in comparison. The night had left him in no doubt of his place as a Mudblood in Slytherin house, as unbelonging as he'd always been.

He'd shown them though. He'd always known he was special, that he did belong here, and now every single person in that house knew it too.

It still thrilled him. _He'd made them all hurt. _

"There is very little sympathy in this school for those raised in a Muggle environment. Not that you'd have seen much of that."

"Were you trying to show me that?" she asked. She sounded baffled. Good.

"I was showing you the true colours of those you've placed around you."

People like Marcus Blishwick, who everyone thinks is so nice, but certainly never spoke to him until he knew I was a half-blood. Or Abraxas's girl, who was only not a Slytherin because she was too cunning and ambitious to be marked out as cunning. Or that pathetic creature Claire, who trailed after Blishwick as though he were a god, playing down her own heritage (less than half a half-blood if truth were told).

He'd also wanted to _mark _her so she'd always be seen as belonging to his side and not that Muggle-loving fool Dumbledore's. So people would wonder – what had she done?

And so the other little Mudbloods would know never to invite them into their seductive world, so she'd be safe from the danger of that place with its hatred and war and destruction, its vesting anonymity, its hideous twisted religion, its prissy and unwizarding morality.

"What makes you think I care?"

"I've seen you. I've seen you stop and help them, seen you stare at where they sit and you _care_. You go out of your way to help them in a thousand tiny ways each week and I've seen you do it, and I've seen other people follow your lead."

It was _unfathomable _why she stopped to help them. No one had ever – not a kind word for four and a half _years _for him but she thought nothing of sending Purebloods on their way, defending pathetic Mudblood children who ought to have to learn to defend themselves like everyone else.

To prove they belonged, to change to fit their new world not change their new world to fit them. That's what that idiot Abraxas had shown him, and it was true – this world was _different_ and the hated teachings of his had no place here.

Here, he was free. There was no Hell.

"When I arrived here I wasn't made very welcome. By anyone. Not one single person in the entire Wizarding world did for me what you did for those worthless children."

He glared at the lake, furiously. What was it about this woman that made him want to slash open his soul for her inspection? Why did everything in him say _trust her, she will understand. _It was so stupid. _Trust no one, and survive_. That was sensible. This Hufflepuffy _sharing_ was – well. Very Hufflepuff. It was disgraceful. He cast a silencing charm just in case he couldn't control anything else and someone was within three hundred yards.

He'd kill anyone else who'd heard him even hint at being pitiable. Hermione offered no pity though. She didn't even look at him, although she was biting her soft, pink lip and it was actually really rather distracting and why didn't she react like normal people?

"I fail to see how that leads to a girl killing herself during dinner."

"You don't need to."

Unable to bear it any more he got up and left her sitting there, taking the warming charm with him. That had been – well. Not a conversation to dwell on. He needed to torture something, urgently, and get rid of the ridiculous urge to tell her all about his horrible childhood.

.

.

.

After taking out his not inconsiderable frustration in the Slytherin Common Room - firstly on a fourth year called Montague, who was actually only partially idiotic, and Orion Black because the girl hadn't been supposed to actually die, and he'd been the one to Imperius her, Tom felt much better.

He hadn't told Orion she hadn't been meant to die and that's why he was being tortured, because all his preening Knights had been so pleased to have a proper Samhain sacrifice they'd been more than usually subservient and fearful and that was very pleasing.

He told them to stay out of the dorm, and lay down on his green-draped bed to have a think.

Overall, he wondered if he'd fucked up or made a real success of the night before. Alphard Black's white-faced devastation was a success (Blacks shouldn't fall for Mudbloods, even if he'd never touched her) as well as a subtle warning to his followers.

The lack of investigation was another success. Not that he'd be tieable to it in any way but it _was _curious even Dumbledore hadn't pressed anything.

Tom had been in the Headmaster's office with the teachers and the Head Girl at the end of the night, reporting the state of the students' and the Professor had simply called it, "A very sad business."

And then he'd gone to bed and Dippet had asked the house-elves to put a shock treatment draught in the Pumpkin juice the next morning. Dippet didn't like upset students or hysteria, he liked a quiet life and he didn't particularly care how he achieved that. It was one of the man's better qualities.

That had been another success because Hermione hadn't had any and he'd seen her confusion at the lack of reaction her peers had had.

The morning was even less clear – he'd walked away from Hermione Dearborn without the upper hand, much to his chagrin.

That said, successes included now even Dumbledore's favourite – his relative (and not the first, Tom had researched him) was marked out forever now (this _would_ follow her, even just in whispers, doubts in the back of people's minds) as a blood supremacist – which actually lent real credence to his rallying cry as well as (incidentally he told himself) marking her as acceptable to those who might otherwise question his interest. In recruiting her.

Or whatever it was he'd do with all that power and intelligence.

And success because he'd seen her look of horror when she'd looked at her friends and an isolated Hermione Dearborn would be very much more malleable…

On the failure side of things he wasn't any closer to her cursed secrets – the question of why she helped Muggleborns – Mudbloods – so especially, why she clearly worried when _no one else_ gave a doxy's breath for the brats – burnt his lips.

Tom's lack of self-control around her was also disturbing. He'd never actually had the urge to kiss anyone before he met her. He'd had it that morning, he'd had it when they were alone in the dungeons more than once and he'd _definitely_ had it last night, both when she'd walked in burning with magic and when her lost brown eyes had stared up at him from her blood spattered face.

He didn't understand it and he hated how tame it made him, hated her because he still hadn't got even half a secret out of her…

All in all the death of the girl dying had, he decided, been for the best. Especially because it had made _such_ a wonderful statement – a sacrifice for Samhain as he'd promised his followers although, actually, that was where a potential fuckup lay.

He sat up from his bed, suddenly, something occurring to him.

Mabel Jefferies had died toasting Samhain, had killed herself. A blood sacrifice like that should have had some power but he hadn't been able to access it. Perhaps it still counted as murder as she'd been under Orion's Imperius?

It had been beautiful really. Dearborn had just sat there. She'd probably been too confused to react, but to everyone else's eyes she'd just _sat_ – hardly making an expression… And when she had actually reacted everyone had already left.

Overall, yes, a positive. And she'd looked quite beautiful in green.

Distractingly so.

He still couldn't believe he'd wasted her biddable and subdued mood.

And if he missed the fire in her eyes when she looked at him, well, that wasn't enough to count as a fuckup surely.

No. A good week's work. He opened his diary and began to chronicle it. He'd concentrate on how to undo whatever spell Dearborn had him under later. It wouldn't do to get distracted now.

_o_

_o_

_three weeks later_

_o_

_o_

_"Legilimens!" _he hissed.

The girl's mind was so weakly protected he could easily sort through her memories.

"What happened in your Duelling session?" he asked and the images came crowding forward.

Hermione, glorious and – no that was early on. She hadn't worn her hair like that for weeks.

"The most recent one, you imbecile."

Claire's mind was mainly filled with images of that drip Blishwick, which turned Tom's stomach, but she was interestingly focused on Dearborn too and he enjoyed the real hatred she felt for the girl.

He'd imperiused her into meeting him in the Room of Hidden Things, and she was knelt before him, dull blue eyes gazing blankly up at him. He was disguised, even so, because you could never be too careful.

Tom liked looking in her mind. She was so weak and ordinary, which reminded him of his own strengths and confirmed that it was his special Slytherin heritage that made him separate from an ordinary half-blood like this one.

Her internalised prejudice against her own mixed blood was quite boring, though. It largely revealed itself as self-loathing for not being pure enough to deserve that utter twat Blishwick. She was all twisted up with jealousy and it made her hate herself and that was nice, he liked seeing how her negative emotions were wearing down her silly Muggleish morals.

Any self-respecting witch would have taken some sort of action now – Blishwick had treated her rather poorly, even in Tom's eyes. That wasn't interesting so he ignored most of the details, but her inner conflict was oddly fascinating and he'd started reading her mind more and more often.

She had some interesting if ineffective plans to seek revenge on Hermione Dearborn – none of which would work but might be entertaining. Her hatred was pathetically misguided, and he didn't understand why she was angry with the only innocent party but again, he hardly cared.

The point was her jealousy had made her almost as obsessive as him and it gave him a window into Dearborn's life so he could greedily watch her without being seen to.

He told himself he was looking for signs of her secrets – and today in particular he was looking at her duelling prowess.

It wouldn't do for her to beat him.

Hermione's subdued mood hadn't seemed to continue into the week, he'd seen her conversing relatively normally and she'd answered questions in class but he hadn't spoken to her directly since that Sunday.

Almost three weeks had passed since then and the end of term was creeping towards them.

Her dark eyes had met his across the Hall as usual and he thought there had been more hatred than he'd seen for some time, which was an unfortunate side-effect of having to kill someone to get her atte- to put his plots into place.

He watched the Ravenclaw final duels through Claire's mind. Hermione was a good duellist, if unengaged in the fight, better than he'd expected.

So was Sophia Rosier, actually, and he wondered if it was time to have a conversation with her about the future.

No – perhaps it was soon for that. But certainly time to offer the hand of friendship. He would see her at New Year, maybe that would be an appropriate time. (He wondered how much it rankled Abraxas to invite him to the Manor and that was a delicious thought).

He hadn't been surprised Hermione had won her duel – he'd known she'd be good. Nor, really, did he need to see her fight. But… he'd been well, _avoiding_ her, mistrusting himself (and perhaps a little embarrassed to be honest because he had revealed a huge gaping part of his frankly miserable time and that wasn't exactly the sort of thing that struck fear into someone or made them do anything but look at you like a lost Hufflepuff _so _it had definitely been sensible to not speak to her for so long) but that didn't stop his curiosity about her in general, or in particular how his Samhain stunt had affected her.

Very little, it seemed. She still seemed quieter, removed somehow, but nothing much had changed.

He admired her casting for a moment (she'd be even more magnificent if she was casting something more interesting, but she _was_ Dumbledore's little protégée so one couldn't expect anything too fun) before directing the idiot girl's memories to mealtimes.

.

.

* * *

><p>Tom is like, so straight up crazy. I love writing him sfm.<p>

Also I wrote Claire as a Muggleborn really early on before I got all involved in thinking about how society must have been for Tom Riddle to gain so much power so like please ignore that, I will go back and change it. Next chapter will probably, hopefully, if I don't get distracted by something, have Slughorn's Christmas party (which Cerdic is coming to).

I'm getting bored of Hogwarts – most of my ideas for this story take place after (and I can't wait to get to the 1990s! omg, it's so much more fun).

Chapter title - Tom Jones reference (if you've never looked at the lyrics for that song, DO! And opening quote is from the Digital Daggers' The Devil Within). I'm thinking of making a playlist for this story which I could put in my profile - let me know what you guys think (and any reccs for Tomione-friendly songs!)

**Thank you SO VERY MUCH for your lovely, kind words. I literally get spurred on to write when I get attention (because I'm a Leo and we like _cannot function_ without it) so please please please let me know what you think, even if you hate everything, and at some point I will try and catch up with replying.**


	17. The Razor's Edge

_Awful things happen to Wizards who meddle with time, Harry._

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><p>"This is excellent, Hermione," Dumbledore said approvingly. "I hadn't expected such a jump in power from conquering your wand. Really very good."<p>

She'd been holding her shield charm in place for an hour and a half as he threw everything but the kitchen sink at it. She was getting tired now, but it was only a vague sense – she could hold it longer if she needed to.

"You may drop it now."

She paused, suspicious. He'd caught her out more than once in her private lessons with some quite devious tactics.

She dropped the shield and then immediately recast, sending what looked like a body bind bouncing off.

Hah!

"You really are learning." He put his wand down. "The lesson is over: I concede."

She dropped it this time and sagged slightly.

"Come, let's have some cocoa."

She settled into an armchair by the fire and gazed into it. Her lessons with Dumbledore had been focused on protective magic for the past three weeks. It was one of her favourite areas, and she'd thought she'd learnt a lot looking after Harry and Ron for a year but the small tweaks Albus suggested to quite basic techniques had amazing results, as well as discussing the theory behind some much more advanced magics she'd never come across before. It was brilliant.

She couldn't deny the change in her power he'd mentioned – she'd never been as magically strong as Harry, just better at spells, (or indeed Albus Dumbledore himself) and perhaps she still wasn't a real match for the latter but she was closer to it that she had been.

"I feel… stronger," she said quietly. "It doesn't make sense – as though I have more magic than I did. I can – I can _feel _it. It was gradual, I didn't notice, but for a week after – after Samhain I was so exhausted all the time and I just slept and slept and now I feel. I don't know. Different."

He was frowning as he stirred the chocolate into the small pan of milk hovering above the flames.

"We have not discussed Halloween, Hermione, but… I think more happened that night than either of us has been aware of." His eyes were distant, considering.

The jubilant mood has dissolved, leaving worry inside her. What had she missed? She'd tried not to think about it at all, locking the memory away and carrying on with life because _she couldn't _do anything about it, couldn't expose Riddle, couldn't change her own behaviour. She was trapped in a role in which she had no power to act for fear of exposure, for fear of damning her and her mentor's lives to the hell of Azkaban. Every time she thought about her position of just fucking waiting around till she could be Hermione Granger again she wanted to blow up the entire castle.

So she tried not to think about it at all.

He handed her a bright pink mug, filled cocoa, and she sipped it as he sat with the look of deep concentration she knew was best left undisturbed.

"May I view your memory of that evening? If you removed it into a Penseive there would be no risk of me accidentally viewing something… else."

She didn't want to focus on that night, didn't want to even _think – _but yes, she ought to know if something had happened, didn't she. And after all, she had seen worse things in her time. Nothing so unexpected or personal, perhaps, but still. Worse.

"Yes. I've never taken a memory for a Pensieve before though so you'll have to show me."

"Focus in on when we were on the mountain, when you made the fire… and then when you left the Hall. Hold those two points in your mind with your will."

Albus stood and opened a cabinet behind his desk, and lifted out a shallow metal bowl. She watched, curiously. She'd never actually seen one before.

He placed the shallow metal bowl on his desk, pushing the first of what would be many spindly silver instruments aside in one direction and a pile of student essays in another to clear a space, and gestured to her. Hermione walked over, strangely nervous.

She closed her eyes and went inwards, into the library of her mind to find the right book. She knew, somehow, where to go, taking it off the shelf – it fell open at her touch, the pages fluttering with swiftly moving images and words. It was strangely easy… Acting on instinct she pulled the relevant pages from the book, and _willed _them into her wand.

When she opened her eyes Dumbledore was looking delighted and a silvery thread hung from her wand, blowing in the draught. It was like spider's silk, fragile and mysterious.

"I've read about it," she explained. "I didn't expect it to be so easy though."

"You do have an unusually well compartmented and organised mind, Hermione, so I'm not surprised this comes naturally. I briefly er - _glimpsed_ it on the night of your arrival."

"How do I - ?"

"The Pensieve will pull it from your wand; just hold it over the basin."

It slid off her wand, and shimmered in the basin.

She tried to find the memory in her own mind and it was still there, but fainter, like an imprint, a photocopy. The deeply tangled emotions that had been attrached to it were… lessened somehow. She could think clearly, logically.

"The magic is deeply complex, but it will allow you to see what you could not in your mind – details you wouldn't have noticed or indeed been able to see even in the experience."

She remembered Harry's descriptions of viewing memories and this made sense – it was a three dimensional experience after all: you could turn around and the room or whatever you in would be there in full detail. You were not controlled by the viewpoint of the person who had experienced the memory because you were in it not just watching it.

She'd never thought about it before, but that _was_ extraordinary magic. She wondered if your magic stored every detail of a place in a way ordinary human memory could not?

"Now, just touch your face to the bowl. I will follow you."

It was truly disconcerting as she fell onto the mountain and saw herself from the outside.

And, she thought idly, that was actually a bit of an ego boost. She looked… well, quite _impressive_ from this perspective, fire streaming from her wand, magic roiling off her in waves.

It was nice, too, not to feel the cold of the wind. Even the faint memory of it lashing her skin made her shiver.

A second later Dumbledore appeared beside her and they watched in silence as she poured herself out into what Hermione could now see was a truly amazing creation.

She watched the memory Dumbledore apparate with the branch of Gubraithan fire, taking it to hide away in Devon, and then they followed her as she ran down the mountain and up to the Tower.

"Um, I'm going to – er _change _in a moment. Can you -?" she said suddenly.

She felt _mortified_. She'd forgotten this part! How utterly embarrassing.

"Ah, of course. Tell me when to open my eyes." He turned around and faced the wall, eyes shut.

She watched herself undress, torn between fascination and embarrassment. It was less horrid than she expected. But the pressure of what was to come couldn't be ignored and she felt nauseous, nervous. She wanted to scream at herself to stop, go to bed, to slam the door shut and keep her memory self here, safe in her tower.

Hermione waited until they'd left her room before she said Dumbledore could look, and he politely pretended not to notice her burning cheeks as they followed memory Hermione into the Great Hall.

She sensed rather than saw Albus stiffen at the conversation over dinner, the anger at the wearing away of Wizarding traditions and glanced up to see him frowning.

Watching herself interact with her friends was bizarre – watching herself do _anything _was bizarre. It wasn't how she saw herself. She looked… poised. As though she belonged. And, then just as mortifying as watching herself change was the flick of her eyes towards the Slytherin table.

But wasn't the point of a Pensieve memory that she didn't have to watch herself? So she turned her back on watching herself, and walked a little way away from the table to watch Tom Riddle. And it was no wonder she caught his eyes so often, Hermione realised, because _his _were drawn to hers even more frequently.

That was disturbing.

He was so beautiful in the candlelight. She'd never had an opportunity to freely observe him, and indeed usually she was too busy trying _not _to but she couldn't tear her eyes away, watching him watch her, his face almost unguarded as a frown flicked over it and even when the girl – _Mabel Jefferies –_ stood up and started shouting he was still watching Hermione.

She shut out the girl's words as best she could, forcing all her attention onto Tom Riddle, who was watching her memory self with an expression of _concern_ and what seemed like faint glee at the same time which was a singularly unsettling combination – he was truly mad, he must be – and then she closed her eyes because she didn't want to see the girl kill herself again and it was coming.

"Hermione, I know this is hard but you must watch," Dumbledore admonished quietly.

_Wasn't this cruel of him?_ she thought suddenly. It had been quite traumatic and he was forcing her to _relive _the experience second-for-second in full colour.

Tom was easier to watch so she rebelliously kept her gaze on him and was surprised to find horror flick across his face when Mabel pulled the knife across her throat and then he was on his feet, coming round the table to stand beside the girl, checking her. He even cast a healing spell, she saw, before giving up and standing to let the teachers in.

Probably part of his act, she thought, turning to observe the faces of those around her. The students looked gratifyingly horrified, even the Slytherins, and that was reassuring to an extent.

She didn't know she'd remembered this bit. She'd actually wondered if she'd fainted because it had been so blurry to live through but now she watched herself sit numbly, covered in innocent blood, as the future Lord Voldemort put himself between her and the sight of the body _almost as if he cared! _But he'd told her he'd done this. So why was he so fucking worried suddenly - or was that just an act? But she could read him fairly well now, she knew the subtle tells of his face when he lied and this seemed real so what the fuck – and she, memory Hermione, was letting him comfort her now, his arm around her shoulders and _she was leaning into him_, god she must have really been in shock, and somehow that was so much more terrifying that the blood soaked girl lying dead on the floor.

She watched Marcus help Claire away, and realised – how had she been so stupid – that the girl _loved_ Marcus, and she'd probably ruined that (in ignorance but nonetheless) – but she'd think about that later.

And then she was hissing _did you do this_ at Tom Riddle and he finally looked happier, as though he'd got something he wanted, which was even weirder. He cast after her as she left the room and Hermione was shocked to see the blood disappear and then she and Dumbledore were falling upwards.

She lurched against the desk, stumbling into Albus, nauseous and even more confused than she had been.

They stared at each other for a moment, the horror she felt mirrored on his face.

"I think we had better sit down," he said quietly.

Neither of them spoke for a long while, but when he finally did she realised they weren't quite on the same page after all.

While she'd been watching Tom Riddle (and it hadn't been creepy, she told herself), he'd been intently focused on the gi – on Mabel Jefferies.

"She sacrificed herself in the name of Samhain and dedicated it to you, Hermione. She may not have _intended _that but actually the words themselves were close enough… And after the fire magic – she completed an ancient ritual, one forgotten now."

He was silent again, staring into the fire thoughtfully. Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to hear the rest, so she stayed quiet, expecting the worst.

"I believe she has… passed some of her magic to you," he said finally.

Oh_. Oh_. She'd never read about such a thing! Well, that wasn't so bad. Actually, that seemed quite positive, really, compared to the hideous possibilities running through her head.

"It was not normal for this ritual to be dedicated to a _person_." He continued. "A god, usually. More commonly the land. Almost all records of such practice have been destroyed… but there are suspicions the practice lingers on in some of the old families. A willing sacrifice, usually burned, and the transferral of their power. It is a gruesome thing."

"Yes," she agreed, wholeheartedly. She would never, to the end of her days, forget seeing the girl die and even with the emotions dissociated it was a ghastly thing. "But… is there not a price for such a thing? It seems like dark magic and that, well, I've always been told that using dark magic takes something."

"If there is a price I do not know it. That concerns me, but – you didn't ask for the sacrifice. I don't know. It is… unprecedented. I will have to think on it further. Are you alright?" he asked, almost as an afterthought.

Student welfare had never been his top priority, she reflected. Or perhaps it was simply that the Wizarding world had different expectations of a person's resolve than the Muggle world?

That seemed… actually that seemed like something she should consider more deeply because it was so _obvious_ and of course she'd noticed it in a hundred hundred different ways but it had never quite _clicked_.

This world was a crueller one. The moral lines were drawn differently. Harry and she had been brought up away from it: perhaps that was why they'd been so resolute in fighting against what seemed like injustice, _was_ injustice, but was also… a part of the world they'd entered.

She realised she hadn't answered.

"Yes. I mean, it's actually better with the memory in there. Away from me. So. You know. You keep it. I didn't know Penseives dulled emotions attached to memory without wholly removing it. I can… remember the facts of what happened without the horror of it."

"Sometimes, it is better to face the full impact of a thing, Hermione."

"Not this thing," she said firmly. She wanted no part of it. She couldn't act on it, she wanted it gone from herself.

And what potential this had! If only there were somewhere safe enough to store her most painful memories of home, how much easier the next fifty years would become.

She could dissociate the most poignant of her memories and so live here, without the ever-present pain of missing everyone, of missing Harry and Ron and the Weasleys and her parents.

But there was nowhere safe enough to risk that.

"It's almost time for supper. If you're sure you're alright… I was so eager to see, I didn't think on how it might be for you to see it again."

"No, really. I'm fine. Thank you. But like I said, I don't want it back in my head. I'll even sacrifice how happy I was before dinner to not have that back."

"Well. Perhaps for now," he agreed. He was still frowning when she bid him good-night, and left the room.

.

.

After supper she sat quietly and pretended to read in the common room, as though nothing untoward had happened – as she had for weeks.

And when it was time for bed, Marcus followed her up the stairs and she let him take her in his arms and kiss her thoroughly, pressed against the door to her room because what did it matter, what did anything matter, when she was so helpless, so utterly removed from everything she could act on

At least his kisses helped her numb away her stagnant, powerless position.

Pureblooded Hermione Dearborn, sweet and smiling and good with a wand but _oh, _how naïve.

She changed for bed, the silver lettering of a strange invitation to Malfoy Manor for New Years Eve glittered in the dim light, reminding her of the terrible price she was paying every day for travelling in time.

She'd accept, of course. Sophia had made her promise to go.

Every unbearable acquaintance, every moment she had to turn her head and remember that it would be fifty years before she could change anything was part of her punishment for travelling so far back in time.

_It's all research_, she told herself. _Think of it as research. _

And as she drifted toward an uncomfortable sleep she thought she had a new empathy for Severus Snape.

.

.

The nightmares held their ground that night. Bellatrix staring out of the mirror as Harry and Ron attacked her, standing behind crying as she stared in awe at her face.

_Why didn't you fight harder Hermione? _They asked.

_Didn't you love us enough? Didn't you love us enough? _

A new figure, auburn haired and blue eyed and smiling, roved through her dreams, controlling and merciless.

_Do this, _he said and she obeyed, as they all did.

_Do this and all will be well. Do this and you will be free. Do this and you will be the saviour. Harry is nothing, now. Harry is nothing here, _he said. _It is for the greater good. _

And she woke, gasping, staring at the Dark Mark on her forearm, a mark that didn't exist, a blank clean, pure arm…

_You're my best friend, _Harry said. _Why have you abandoned me? _

.

.

But she didn't dream about Mabel Jefferies, and that was enough.

* * *

><p>THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS I LOVE YOU ALL. One day I will reply to them. They mean so much though so please carry on.<p>

I had a really great, constructive review from an anon called Piglet. Piglet, I'm sorry you don't like the blood purity thing - it's not going to go on for much longer, because that would be boring, but I do think it's really important for creating the a world in which Tom Riddle could come to power with the rhetoric he did, and Hermione just wouldn't be Hermione if she didn't notice and care. Also it's central to Tom's character I think.

And for a Plot Point coming up in the next couple of chapters with Marcus and Claire.

So please bear with me for a little while. There are way more important things to come, agreed, but I'm afraid howblood purity affects their society really interests me. I hope I'm showing that it's a casual and totally ingrained dismissal for the most part rather than a malicious _active_ matter of every day hate. So, this is a society in which the conditions are there for someone to come along and whip them into a frenzy and exploit their fears, but those fears need to have some basis in reality that's a bit more convincing than four hundred years ago Muggles used to burn us.

Also... I have this theory that Wizards need to fear Muggles because otherwise they'd abuse them - so it's actually partly done as an attempt to keep the Muggles safe from people who would have, let's be honest, absolute power over them. And that's going to be really important later when Hermione works out how to be as much Granger as she has to be Dearborn.

Thanks also to everyone who liked reading Tom's POV so much. I LOVE writing him, it's really, really fun so I'll probably do another one soon.

This chapter is a bit weird tbh, sorry. I'm a bit nervous about it and I'm not suure it works? So let me know what you think. Title references Digital Daggers - _The Razor's Edge _which, like allllllllllll their songs, is very Tomione.

Next chapter should be Slughorn's Christmas party!


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